


Mated

by otter



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Porn, Angst and Humor, Cuddling & Snuggling, Feelings, Happy Ending, M/M, Panic Attack, Past Abuse, Past Coercion, Past Exploitation, Past Torture, Past exploitation and torture of a minor, Past statutory rape (not depicted), Romance, Slow Build, neckz n throatz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-02
Updated: 2014-02-12
Packaged: 2017-12-10 04:36:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 37,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/781844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/otter/pseuds/otter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles already had a history with skin magazines for werewolves. It wasn't like he was <i>new</i> at this, even if his modeling portfolio was completely pathetic. He was cool and collected. He was a jaded professional. He was not at all prepared for working with Derek Hale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [siess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/siess/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **ADDITIONAL WARNING:** There is mention and discussion of past dub-con, what I would probably call porn industry exploitation, but none of it actually occurs in the present in the story itself. In later chapters there is fairly explicitly depicted torture and implied sexual assault, descriptions of same, and some pretty intense discussion of it by the people involved. This is all stuff that has happened in the past and is NOT depicted happening in the present, but it's still not entirely off-screen. If you think any of that might be triggering for you, PLEASE be cautious about reading this story. Some chapters have additional notes linking to end-notes that summarize the chapter so you can skip it entirely if you don't feel comfortable. If you'd like any sort of summary or bulleted points of potentially triggering content, so you know whether you'd be comfortable reading, please don't hesitate to get in touch with me here on AO3 or on [my tumblr](http://thewinterotter.tumblr.com). Please stay safe, friends.
> 
> This story is set in the general "Neckz N Throatz" universe, which was born on tumblr and has given rise to some sincerely awesome additions and variations. You don't need to read any of those to understand what's going on here, but you really SHOULD read them, if you haven't, just because they're all amazing. (They'll also help you get some of the references.) The original story is [here](http://captain-snark.tumblr.com/post/40298767852/daunt-rainglazed-helenish) and Jen has very helpfully put together an entire lexicon of Neckz N Throatz works for her [rec list](http://swingsetindecember.tumblr.com/post/49156045894/neckz-n-throats).
> 
> My eternal thanks to DevilDoll for her mad beta skills. That makes her sound like a rabid werewolf, which is actually accurate for her staggering ability to sniff out my plot problems. :D
> 
> Thanks also to Siess, who commissioned this work via the [AO3 auction](http://ao3auction.tumblr.com) and contributed not only a serious fistful of money to the AO3 but also a great prompt and some excellent cheerleading.

Stiles was trying _really hard_ not to fidget, but it wasn't working.

The woman on the other side of the desk — Ms. L. Wright, Editor, according to the name plate on her desk, "call me Lucy," according to the woman herself — was flipping slowly through a book that was filled with pictures of Stiles. The experience was excruciating on a level that Stiles hadn't anticipated. He'd never showed a portfolio to anyone before, hadn't even had one until the day before, when he'd put this one together. It was mostly amateur candids and clippings from the three shoots he'd done with _Neckz 'N' Throatz,_ because his latest work hadn't hit the stands yet and other than werewolf skin magazines, he didn't actually have a modeling career. He hadn't even had a _headshot,_ before yesterday.

"These are pretty good," Lucy commented, tapping her immaculately-painted fingernail against one of the candid shots. "Friends help you with them?" She looked up, something like a half-smile on her face, and it could have been mocking or encouraging; Stiles didn't know her well enough to say. Lots of wolves had smiles that seemed sharp-edged, even when they weren't.

"Ah, yeah," Stiles said, and couldn't resist the urge to shift in his chair, sliding his hands down the denim over his thighs, reaching up to scratch his jaw. "I— you asked for a portfolio, and I didn't have much, so Lydia and one of our friends helped me out."

They'd done a good job of it, too, Allison sifting critically through Stiles' closet while Lydia had applied what had seemed like a massive amount of make-up to hide the scrapes and bruises. They'd dragged him to the park and taken a whole series of photos that had seemed ridiculous at the time: Stiles leaning against walls, making an idiot of himself on the jungle gym, reading one of his textbooks with a highlighter clutched between his teeth. He'd felt like a grade-A tool when they were actually taking the pictures, but Allison really was good with her digital SLR, and he was oddly proud of the photos now, watching the way Lucy's fingers drifted slowly across each picture before she turned the page.

"Lydia's a lovely girl," Lucy said, without looking up this time. "She has impeccable taste, which is why I was happy to agree to this meeting, when she suggested that a friend of hers might be a good fit for our publication."

Stiles shifted in his seat again, trying to calm down, knowing that Lucy could hear the too-fast nervous beat of his heart. "She's great," he agreed, sincerely, because Lydia wasn't just great, she was _the greatest._ "And thank you, for seeing me. I really appreciate you taking the time."

Lucy smiled again, turning the last page over, tapping her fingernails against the empty pages at the back. "You don't have your latest work from _Marked_ in here," she pointed out.

Stiles tried to hide the wince, but he knew he didn't do a very good job. He'd asked Lydia to do the makeup for him again, for the interview, but she'd looked at him like he was crazy, told him no, and granted him an annoyed hair-flip as she'd turned away. Which was why the pink-edged scabs on his cheek and the ugly purple-yellow hickeys not yet faded from his throat and collarbone were clearly visible. And apparently it was obvious to everyone with eyes how he'd gotten them.

"Ah, no," Stiles said, after swallowing down his dread and shame and what felt like a hundred other emotions that just _thinking_ about his shoot with _Marked_ always conjured up. "It's not out yet. But even if it was, I wouldn't really want to show it to anybody."

Lucy looked up at him, folded his portfolio shut and left it face-down on her desk, covered it over with her folded hands. "Not proud of your work there?" she asked, in an entirely neutral tone of voice that told him _nothing_.

Shit. Stiles tried not to panic, but he was pretty sure it wasn't okay to knock your previous employers in a job interview, and what exactly was he supposed to _say_? He finally settled on, "I think I did okay. Everybody there seemed, you know, happy with me. It's just not an experience I'm eager to repeat."

Lucy's smile this time seemed a bit more genuine, softer, like Stiles had somehow conjured up the right answer. "In that case, you might fit in here just fine. Are you familiar with our publication, Stiles?"

"A bit, yeah," Stiles said. "I've seen Lydia's stuff, of course, and she loaned me some of her back-issues to go through."

Lucy leaned back in her chair. "So you know we're a bit different from the places you've worked before. That could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending entirely on you. _Neckz 'N' Throatz_ tends to always be searching for new models and new looks. It's why they're always scouting; I'm guessing they approached you, instead of the other way around? You've done three shoots with them already, so I'm willing to bet you got snapped up by _Marked_ because _Neckz 'N' Throatz_ wasn't interested in booking you anymore."

Stiles nodded, trying not to look miserable about it but probably failing completely.

"I'm glad you had Lydia to point you in another direction," Lucy said, almost consolingly. "Because _Marked_ has a high turn-over too, but it's mostly because they tend to chew humans up and spit them out. Sometimes literally. We're different here, and our readership is interested in something different, too. We offer you a trial period, just to make sure you're comfortable with the work, but after that you sign a long-term contract." She waved a hand toward the posters hung on the wall behind her desk, huge framed copies of past magazine covers, each of them featuring a pair of models instead of just one, most of them in pretty innocent poses beneath a logo reading _MATED_. "Our readers are interested in relationships, lifetime commitments, in the idea of being truly mated with someone. Which means that when you model with us, you work with just one other model for any intimate shoots, and you work _exclusively_ with that model. This arrangement has its benefits, but there are also drawbacks, so I want to make sure you understand what you'd be signing up for."

"But you... want me signed up?" Stiles asked, aware that he sounded pathetically hopeful.

"Of course I want you, Stiles, you're _perfect,_ " Lucy said, and rolled her eyes like he was being an idiot. It was an expression he was familiar with because he tended to elicit it in everyone he ever talked to. "But don't sound so eager; I haven't gotten to the bad news, yet."

"Okay," Stiles said, and settled himself a little more firmly in his chair, wrapping his fingers around the arm rests like he was bracing for impact. "Hit me with it."

"I'd laugh but this isn't going to be funny for either of us," Lucy said, shooting him a look that only managed to be half-serious. "I don't actually have any unpaired models at the moment. I did have one in need of a partner, last week, but he is right at this moment doing a shoot with the model I just hired _yesterday._ "

"Oh," Stiles said, and was glad to be so anchored in his chair because he actually deflated a little. "I see."

"The reason that's not funny for _me_ is that that shoot's probably going to end in literal tears and it's costing me money." Lucy went on. "We have a certain number of models here, and the reason I don't tend to hire many new pairs is because we only have so many pages, and our readers have their favorite couples. There are thousands of people who buy this magazine _specifically_ to see photos of Jackson and Lydia, or Eric and Gadil, and they keep coming back to see those same people, again and again. In Derek's case, they keep buying the magazine to find out whether they'll ever see him find somebody he's willing to _keep,_ because he is a massive pain in my ass."

 _Derek._ Holy _shit._ Stiles knew that name. Stiles had seen that name in Lydia's back-issues of the magazine, accompanied by photos that had made him want to weep. "He doesn't have a regular partner," Stiles said, half statement and half prompt. He knew Derek didn't have a regular partner. He was the _only_ model in the magazine who appeared with somebody new in every issue.

"No, he has a string of models who are generally unwilling to work with us again after their first traumatic experience. And if he wasn't so damned handsome and our readers weren't so damned invested in him and his tragic inability to behave like a normal person, I'd have fired his ass by now. So here's the deal, Stiles. I'll give you a shot, but only with Derek. And the only way you get more work with us is if by some miracle you and Derek both like each other enough to even make it to a long-term contract. So I'm going to take you down to the studio where they're shooting. If things are going as poorly with his new partner as I'm assuming they are, and if you think you're willing to deal with Derek, and he somehow _doesn't_ send you screaming from the room nursing your wounded ego, you're hired. On a probationary basis."

She stood up, so he did too, and when she stretched out her hand he took it, gratefully.

"Deal," Stiles agreed, wondering just what exactly the fuck he was getting into.

+++

What he was getting into was, apparently, six feet of dark hair, broody eyebrows, ridiculously sculpted muscle and a really surly attitude. He probably should've guessed it, from Derek's photo spreads, which usually featured a lot of sour looks, but he'd thought that was just a _thing_ that Derek did. Like Blue Steel or something. His own personal Magnum. Apparently it was just his personality.

"His sister and I were best friends in college," Lucy murmured to Stiles, as they stood outside the ring of lights and camera equipment surrounding the shoot. "So I guess I only have myself to blame for hiring him to begin with, since I already knew what an asshole he was."

The lighting technician snickered. Derek shot a glare in their direction, so obviously that whole thing had been audible to werewolf ears, but he didn't seem to be able to see them properly through the glare of the lights. Stiles at least was thankful for that, because both models were shirtless, but Derek's _jeans were unbuttoned,_ and Stiles was experiencing certain feelings about that which were probably visible in his expression. Visible _from space._ Derek was about a million times more physically impressive in person. It was only slightly less embarrassing knowing that Derek couldn't see him well enough to tell exactly what Stiles was thinking.

"Derek, focus please," the photographer snapped. "Put your arms around Mason. Yes, like that, good. Mason, try to relax."

Mason looked approximately twenty million light-years away from relaxed. He looked like a prey animal ensnared by the claws of an apex predator, which to be fair was exactly his situation. He was slender and had blond bed-head and would probably look really good if he'd been paired with somebody who wasn't completely hostile toward his entire existence.

"Derek, stop terrorizing your co-workers," Lucy called out, "and wipe that frown off your face, you're a _model,_ it's your job to look how the photographer asks you to look, and I'm going to hazard a guess here that 'miserable' isn't what he's going for."

"Stop micromanaging me, Lucy," Derek said. His voice was surprisingly mild and not as deep as Stiles would've expected from looking at him.

The frown did ease up just a little, though, and he turned his head so his face was hidden behind Mason's, dipped against the back of Mason's neck, while the photographer frantically snapped the shot.

It almost looked intimate and comfortable, like Derek was scenting Mason's neck, which Stiles had long ago learned was a big thing for werewolves, but it was Mason who mostly pulled the shot off by managing for a few bare moments to look less terrified and more... well, not _comfortable_ exactly, but like the tension was more sexual and less circle-of-life-related.

The photographer looked at the shot on his camera's display and shared a grimace with his assistant, who was sitting in front of Stiles, reviewing the photos wirelessly on a laptop. The photographer said, "Let's break for lunch," and the 'before I attempt to kill this werewolf with my bare hands' was only implied.

"Oh my _God,_ " Lucy said, sounding exasperated, and then pointed Stiles toward the table set off to the side where there was some food laid out. "Stiles, why don't you grab something to eat? I need to have a chat with my photographer for a minute, and then I'll introduce you to Derek, okay?"

Stiles said, "Sure," and bee-lined it for the table, because he was in college and the first rule of college was _never turn down free food._

The photographer's assistant and the lighting tech came over, too, and Mason came with them, looking less like he was hungry and more like he was trying to find safety in the center of the herd. They all clustered around the table, but nobody gossiped, presumably because there were werewolves in the room who would be able to hear anything they might say, and most of what they probably _wanted_ to say was related to Derek and what a massive tool he was.

When Stiles turned around, though, his plate loaded down with an awesome sandwich and a truly ridiculous amount of chips, he saw Lucy and the photographer still engaged in some kind of earnest conversation, and Derek slumped at one of the two plastic tables set up as a lunch area, wearing a t-shirt now, which made Stiles feel simultaneously thankful and dejected. He was scowling at the tabletop, scratching at a pen mark on its surface with his fingernail, and he looked miserable, his shoulders hunched, which Stiles could only assume had to do with whatever was being said in the conversation going on on the other side of the studio space.

Stiles turned back around, grabbed another plate, and made another sandwich.

He slid the plates onto the table and dropped himself into the open chair across from Derek in more or less the same movement. Then he dug the cans out of soda out of his jacket pockets, kept a Coke for himself and slid the Coke Wolf over to Derek's side of the table.

"I got you a Coke," Stiles said, gifting Derek with a wide smile that the guy didn't seem to appreciate _at all,_ "because the blood of your enemies wasn't available as a beverage option."

Derek didn't answer, but he did look Stiles over in a way that implied that he wasn't impressed with what he saw, and then he leaned back and crossed his arms, somehow deepened his frown while simultaneously raising an eyebrow.

"The sandwich is turkey. I'd have brought you a bloody shank of Bambi but they didn't have that, either," Stiles went on, with a disapproving tut. He didn't actually disapprove, though, because the food was surprisingly good. He already had his own sandwich in his hand and his first bite was _delicious._

"Werewolf jokes," Derek finally said, his voice flat, even, and unamused. "So original."

Stiles rolled his eyes, chewed a little more before he swallowed enough of his seriously amazing sandwich to actually answer without embarrassing himself. "Please. My best friend is a werewolf and he's a cream puff. Those were 'your resting face happens to be a murder face' jokes. Those jokes were not speciesist, they were you-specific. It's a good thing that your werewolf powers don't include the ability to kill people psychically because I'm pretty sure you'd be the last man on earth."

Derek snorted, but he also eyed his sandwich like he was thinking about it, then finally picked it up, gave it a sniff, and took a bite. He popped the top on his Coke one-handed, which was a sexier move than it had any right to be.

"I'm Stiles, by the way," Stiles said, and wasn't stupid enough to offer his hand for a shake because there was no universe in which Derek was going to take it. Even aside from the guy's attitude, they both had sandwiches in their hands, and Stiles had always felt that there was an unspoken code that food trumped social conventions.

Derek made a distasteful sort of face, but it wasn't very effective because it wasn't all that different from his usual sort of face. "That's the most awful fake modeling name I've ever heard," he said, and didn't bother to introduce himself.

Stiles laughed. "It's just my nickname, actually, people have been calling me that since I was like two. My actual name is pretty much unpronounceable. Shit, I never even _thought_ about a _modeling_ name. I could've rebranded myself with something manly and rugged! Maybe I should do it now! What do you think? Harrison? Luke? Mace?"

Derek squinted at him. "Are you seriously equating 'manly' and 'rugged' with _Star Wars_ -themed?"

"Maybe," Stiles said, but he bit off whatever witty rejoinder was going to spill from his lips next when Lucy's voice raised loud enough on a curse-word that even Stiles could hear it. When he turned to look she was bent over the laptop, looking at the photos from the session, and her hand was clutched hard enough around the back of the folding metal chair that it looked like she'd dented it. The photographer looked grim, and the other guys were still standing over at the catering table, clutching their plates and looking uncertain. Apparently they weren't willing to get close enough to Derek to even sit down at the other table.

When Stiles turned back to Derek he was looking down again, hunched a little further over the table, and he'd dropped his sandwich onto the plate like he'd lost his appetite, which wasn't even possible. Stiles didn't know how to cook but he _totally_ knew how to make sandwiches. One of his jobs freshman year had been in a sub shop. He was the _master_ of making sandwiches.

So he leaned over the table a little further too, putting down his own lunch just to signal his seriousness, and said, "What's going on?" because he knew that whatever was being said, Derek had heard it all.

"She's seriously thinking about firing me," Derek said. He sounded morose and unhappy and just _resigned_ to it, which as far as Stiles was concerned was _not okay_. "Which won't be a surprise to anyone." He sighed, looking away, staring at nothing, seemingly lost in his own thoughts.

"She'd be crazy," Stiles said, and he knew Lucy could hear him if she was bothering to listen, but it wouldn't really matter if she fired Derek, would it? Because Derek was his only shot at this, too. "Look, man, she brought me down here to meet you because she knew this shoot would be going awful, right? So it can't be that bad. It's not like she's _surprised._ "

Derek clenched his jaw a little tighter and didn't respond, which might have been because Lucy was striding in their direction, looking _pissed._

When she got to the table, she put her hands flat on it and leaned over, getting right in both of their faces. Derek only looked at her, warily, mostly from the corner of his eyes. Stiles actually leaned back a little, trying to remind himself that it would literally be a criminal act for her to bite him. "Derek, you've got to be _kidding me,_ " she said, and she did actually sound pretty done with the whole thing. "That last shot is the only one that's remotely printable and your face isn't even visible in it. What does that say to you?"

"I don't—" Derek said, and then snapped his mouth shut, like he wasn't sure how to finish that sentence.

"It says that you're not exactly model material, is what it says," Lucy tells him. "Why are you even _doing_ this? Maybe you should consider some line of work where you'd get to be bitchy at people professionally. You could work at a soup stand or become a judge on _American Weretalent_ or something."

Derek didn't say anything, just looked down at his half-finished sandwich and waited for the ax to fall.

So it was Stiles who said, "I think he's awesome." They both stared at him, and Stiles' hind-brain started screaming that he was about to be eaten; he was pretty sure that he was _crazy,_ but he pressed on anyway. "Lydia gave me that issue from last year, the one with the solo shoot and the little interview? I must've stared at it for an hour. I couldn't put it down." He looked at Derek, just Derek, as steadily as he could manage, and it helped that Derek's eyes had gone wide like he couldn't quite believe somebody was complimenting him. "You know that one shot, where you were sitting in the window seat, and all that light was spilling in on you? You looked like you were a million miles away but it was _beautiful,_ man. I felt like I could see your soul."

Lucy was still staring at him, eyes narrowed, like he was an emissary from another planet and nothing he said made any sense. She straightened up, slowly, looking back and forth at the two of them, then folded her arms across her chest. Derek had looked away again, but he'd also flushed a delicate pink, which was _adorable,_ so even if this all went down in flames and Lucy fired them both, it'd be kind of worth it, in the end.

"Okay, here's what we're going to do," she finally said. "I'm going to pay Mason — who by the way is a very nice boy who doesn't deserve to be treated like an amusing fainting goat, _Derek_ — and I'm going to send him home. You" — she pointed at Stiles, and the finger she used suddenly had a claw instead of a fingernail — "are going to finish out this shoot with Derek. If you want to stay after that, consider yourself officially hired. And _you_ " — this time the point of doom was for Derek — "are going to prove to me that you're actually capable of behaving like a goddamned professional, or you're gone."

Derek's scowl apparently only intensified when combined with outrage. "I can't shoot with him!" he argued, and waved a hand at Stiles like just _looking_ at him ought to make the reasons obvious enough. "He looks like he just stepped out of a spread from _Marked!_ " That last word he spit out like a curse, which was pretty much Stiles' feeling on the subject, too.

"We do have a make-up department," Lucy snarled back. "I'm not asking, Derek, I'm _telling_ you how this is going to go. If you're not up for it, you're welcome to find work elsewhere. And if the two of you don't give me something that I can _actually put in the magazine,_ then you can find another line of work, Derek, and I'll be finding Stiles here a brand new werewolf partner who isn't so goddamned anti-social. Are we clear?"

Derek grumbled and looked away, but he nodded. Stiles nodded too, eagerly, because he desperately needed the work, but also because he _really_ wanted to work with Derek. Even if he was an asshole. Because possibly Stiles had poor judgment, or a masochistic streak, or maybe he'd developed a massive crush on a werewolf he'd seen in a magazine. _Shit._

"Alright, good," Lucy said, and her voice and expression even softened a little. "I'm going to go set everything up. Derek, take Stiles upstairs to make-up and stay with him. I know it might be a novel concept for you, but try _talking_ to him and not being a complete dick. I'll have someone come and get you both when we're ready to go down here."

Derek nodded once, sharply, then stood up, walking toward the studio door without a word. Stiles took the time to flash Lucy a grateful smile, mouthing 'thank you' at her, before he turned and jogged toward Derek's retreating back.


	2. Chapter 2

"Dude, it's gonna be fine, we've totally got this," Stiles said, for what felt like the tenth time.

The make-up artist, Haley, was already done with him, and had been summoned to one of the studios downstairs, so they were alone now. Stiles was taking the opportunity to examine himself in the mirror, because it felt almost novel to see his face and to _not_ see the mess he'd let _Marked_ — well, technically, a smirking little shit of an Alpha in the employ of _Marked_ — make of him. Haley had set him up with some sweet clothes, too: a pair of fitted slacks that made his ass look _awesome,_ a dark blue button-down that she'd told him to roll up to his elbows, and a pair of smartly shined shoes that were very nearly in his size. She'd had Derek change into flannel pajama pants, which should have been hilarious and adorable but was in reality startlingly sexy.

Derek snorted, staring down past his crossed arms to his crossed ankles and bare feet. He was leaning against the counter with his back to the mirrors, trying to look relaxed and completely failing at it. "It's not going to work out. It _never_ works out. They never—" He broke off, with a frustrated noise, and waved one hand like that was supposed to mean something. "That shoot you mentioned, the solo? I was supposed to have a partner for that. He called in and said he'd heard about my _reputation_ and wanted to cancel. People don't _want_ to work with me."

Stiles rolled his eyes. "Of course they don't, you're kind of a jerk and you act like you're going to literally eat them alive," he said. "But I _totally_ want to work with you, so what does that make me, an elusive unicorn?"

"You want to work with me because if you don't Lucy's going to change her mind about that job offer."

Stiles clutched at his chest. "That hurts me, Derek. Right here. In my heart-al region. I've definitely got a job now, man, and if you don't want to keep yours that's cool, but just _say so,_ don't fuck around when I'm trying to help you." Derek didn't say anything, which Stiles took to mean that he actually _did_ want to keep his job. "Anyway, I think the jerk thing makes us more compatible because I have it on good authority that I too am kind of a jackass."

"And I thought it was supposed to be opposites that attract," Derek grumbled.

"Are you saying you're attracted to me?"

"No. I'm not even remotely saying that."

Stiles huffed, looked at himself in the mirror and admitted that that was probably fair. Maybe Derek had a thing about muscles and how his sexual partners had to have at least as many as him. Or maybe he never dated anybody who wore bright red Converse. Or maybe he didn't date, period.

"Well, that sucks," Stiles said, leaning back against the counter next to Derek, folding his arms over his chest too, so they looked like stupid moping bookends. "This would be a lot easier if you were. I mean, I'm pretty sure these shoots are supposed to be sexy and if you do it with _that_ look on your face—"

"What look?" Derek said, scowling a little harder.

"Yeah, _that_ look, exactly. It's too bad there isn't a way to like, physically force yourself to like somebody. Oh! Fuck! I know!"

He didn't even think about the fact that putting his hands on Derek could plausibly result in them being ripped off. He just grabbed Derek by the arm and tugged him over to one of the swiveling make-up chairs, pushing until Derek went where he was trying to put him. Then he turned the chair until it was pointed toward the chair next to it, which he dropped himself into, swiveling as he went so they were facing each other, their knees only a few inches apart.

"What are you doing?" Derek asked warily. It was also the first time he'd looked actively interested in anything since Stiles had met him, so Stiles was calling it a win.

"Okay, I read about this study in one of my classes, where they made people actually like each other more. It's not even hard, it won't take long. We just have to tell each other a couple things about our feelings or something, and then look each other in the eye for a few minutes." He didn't mention that it was actually a study about love; he did have _some_ sense of self-preservation.

"That's stupid," Derek said.

"Your _face_ is stupid," Stiles told him, solemnly. "I'm going to tell you a thing about myself now. My last shoot actually was at _Marked_ and they kept trying to push me further than I wanted to go and they definitely bruised me up a lot more than we'd agreed to. It was fucking awful. I'm not ever doing that again." He paused, then figured honesty couldn't really hurt in this situation and added, "Even the _crew_ were leering at me. Nobody's ever _leered_ at me before, Derek. It was unsettling."

Derek was staring at him, looking confused, but there was also a new softness around his mouth, like he maybe felt a little sympathetic.

"Your turn," Stiles prompted, when he didn't say anything.

"I, um," Derek said, and it wasn't an outright rejection, at least, but then he was just quiet for a long moment with his mouth hanging open like he had no idea what to say. "I did a shoot there once, too."

Nothing else was forthcoming. Stiles waited for it, leaning in earnestly with his elbows propped on his knees, but Derek appeared to be done.

"Well, that's a start," Stiles said. "Um... oh, okay, here's a good one. The first time I had sex the girl totally cried afterward. It pretty much scarred me for life."

"She did not," Derek argued. He seriously sounded like he thought Stiles was lying.

"She did, man, I swear! I mean I didn't hurt her or anything. We'd just finished and I was kissing her, you know, and suddenly she pushes me away and she's just sitting there in my bed, naked, crying. She starts telling me about how she just broke up with her boyfriend and she feels like she's betrayed him and the sex was really good but we just can't be together and she was seriously just _freaking out._ I probably looked like somebody had just slapped me with a fish."

Derek's mouth actually curled up at the corner. "What did you do?"

Stiles shrugged. "I gave her a hug, we shared an entire pint of ice cream and watched rom-coms until morning, then I gave her a ride over to her ex-boyfriend's place so she could have her beautiful reunion moment."

"You're not even lying right now," Derek said. "Your heartbeat is completely steady. How is that even _possibly_ a true story?"

"The tragedy of my life," Stiles agreed, and spread his hands as if to put said tragedy on display. "They didn't have a beautiful reunion, by the way. It turned out they'd broken up like _a year_ before and the guy had gotten _married_ since then. I drove her home and she cried all the way there, too."

"Jesus," Derek said, looking appropriately awe-struck.

"Right? Your turn."

"There is no universe in which I can top that," Derek said, shaking his head.

"You don't have to top it, dude. It's not a whose-life-is-more-pathetic competition. And if it was, you would totally lose. Just tell me something personal about yourself. Anything."

Derek tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair, thinking. Finally he said, "When I was three I thought shapeshifters could pick what kind of animal they wanted to be when they changed. I spent six months trying really hard to turn into a pony."

Stiles laughed out loud. "I don't even have the werewolf lie detector to go on but I can tell just from the look on your face that that story is one hundred percent for real. That is _awesome._ "

Derek shrugged, looking down at his hands, but he was actually smiling at long last, a shy little grin that he wasn't doing a great job of holding back. "I wouldn't even _remember_ it except that my parents like to tell that story in excruciating detail every chance they get."

"Cruel," Stiles agreed. "Parents are sadists, seriously. My dad's the sheriff back home and when I actually got a date for senior prom he thought it would be hilarious if instead of going crazy taking pictures and stuff, he greeted my date at the door with a shotgun."

"Oh my god," Derek said, and splayed a hand over his face like he was embarrassed on Stiles' behalf. Stiles was pretty sure he was also trying to hide the fact that he was almost laughing.

"Turns out she was a competitive skeet shooter, and we were almost late to prom because she and my dad got into this huge discussion about gun maintenance."

"You're right, you actually _would_ win a pathetic-life competition," Derek said.

"Thanks a lot, dude. Alright, last one. Tell me one more thing."

Derek stared at him for a long moment, like he was trying to think of something or like he _was_ thinking about something, but the something he was thinking about was Stiles, and not another embarrassing anecdote. Or possibly Stiles was kidding himself.

But when Derek finally spoke again, he said, "Yeah, I've got one. This is actually working."

Stiles blinked at him, not sure for a moment what that meant, but then he smiled and his smile just kept getting wider until he felt like it was going to swallow his entire face. He'd be the mouth-faced boy, on top of all of his other problems, and he didn't even care.

"We're not even done yet," he said, and leaned forward entirely on impulse, grabbing Derek's hand. It was warm and broad and when he laced their fingers together, palm to palm, Derek actually curled his around the back of Stiles' hand almost automatically. It made Derek lean in, too, bringing their faces closer together, and it might have been a mistake because Stiles could see all of his beautiful stubble up close now and he was having a real problem with it.

"You didn't mention holding hands," Derek said, looking down at their tangled-together fingers. He didn't take his hand back.

"Hush up your face and look at me," Stiles said. "Just a couple minutes, okay?"

Derek sighed, but he did it. It was awkward as hell, just staring into each other's eyes when politeness and the rules of guy-ness usually called it bad form, but after a minute or so they both relaxed and the weirdness dissipated. Stiles swept his thumb across the outside curve of Derek's, and when Derek didn't say anything he did it again, and again, smooth and steady as a metronome. Derek's eyes weren't even a single color, were actually a whole _collection_ of colors that Stiles was pretty sure were technically called "hazel," but which Stiles preferred to call "unfair." They were sort of brownish-gold around the pupil, which seeped into a green-tinged blue that went dark around the edges. It was ridiculous, just like the rest of him.

He smelled really good, too, which Stiles would never admit to noticing, and the rhythm of his breathing was kind of soothing, and every time he blinked his lashes swept his cheeks and he looked like a painting or something, and—

And somebody knocked on the door, very wisely didn't open it, and called out that the crew was ready for them downstairs.

Stiles blinked, confused for a moment about what the hell they were talking about, before he realized that he'd seriously just fallen into Derek's stupid dreamy eyes and momentarily forgotten what the hell he was doing.

"Uh, be there in a minute!" Stiles called back.

Derek didn't even pull away at the thought that somebody might burst in on them as they sat there staring at each other's faces and holding hands. He did stand up, though, and tugged Stiles up, too, by their joined hands. He cleared his throat and then said, "Well, you're the expert. Anything else we need to do to cement our profound soul-bond before we go down there and let them take photos of us in compromising positions? You want a fucking hug or something?"

"That's an awesome idea," Stiles said, and stepped right in close, holding tight to Derek's hand and slipping the other one around his waist, plastering himself to Derek's front. He let out an exaggerated sigh of contentment when he hooked his chin over Derek's shoulder.

The thing was, it was a _joke_ really, but Derek... Derek wrapped his free arm around Stiles' shoulders, hesitantly at first, and then firmly enough to really bring their chests together, and when he breathed out against Stiles' neck, Stiles couldn't help but let his eyes fall shut and spend a long, warm moment just enjoying himself.

Stiles' idea might've worked too well. He was pretty sure he was actually falling in love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The study mentioned about eye-gazing is real and was conducted by Prof. Arthur Arun at SUNY Stonybrook. You can read more about it [here](http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/hottopics/love/flirting.shtml).
> 
> Also in reference to Derek as a pony, this is entirely the fault of [Daunt](http://daunt.tumblr.com) who is not only wonderful and talented but also [did a sketch of some of the cast as horses](http://daunt.tumblr.com/post/49008511080/i-was-working-on-real-work-stuff-last-night-and). There are really no words for my inability to deal with how happy that makes me.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **ADDITIONAL WARNING:** Please note that I've added tags for past **coercion** and **exploitation.** Those were the best tagging ideas I could manage for some of the content in this chapter. It's discussed but not explicitly described, and could be triggering, so please use your discretion.

"But what did she _actually say?"_ Lydia demanded, and slammed the cupboard in the kitchen with _way_ too much force. "Word for word, Stiles. Your shoddy paraphrasing is _useless_ to me."

Stiles screwed up his face, considered pouring himself another bowl of Cocoa Puffs because he was going to need his strength to make it through this interrogation alive, and said, "I wasn't recording her remarks, Lydia. I don't take a stenographer with me everywhere I go."

Lydia actually growled, which was just a sign that she was spending too much time with that douchebag Jackson. Case in point: Jackson was sitting at the other end of the breakfast bar at that very moment, doing a whole lot of nothing — unless smirking counted as an activity — while Lydia was cooking him pasta. He was _such an asshole._

"I could have you killed," Lydia said, waving a wooden spoon in Stiles' direction. "No jury would convict."

"Okay, Jesus, she said something like, 'Congratulations, Derek, you're not unemployed, and you're somehow even hotter than any of us ever realized before. Call your parents and tell them well done on your genetics.' And then I think the photographer's assistant said, 'Girl, you know that's right.' And I did a Z-snap, because the situation just seemed to call for it."

"It really disappoints me that anybody realizes I know you," Jackson added, helpfully.

"Likewise, dickface," Stiles said.

This time when Lydia waved a kitchen implement in his direction it was a knife, so Stiles wisely cringed back, even though she was like six feet away, on the other side of the kitchen. "I want to know what Lucy said about _you._ "

"She said, 'Stiles, you did a wonderful job, and you're devastatingly handsome, and I'd like to offer you a long-term contract right now. If you don't agree to come back and do more shoots with Derek I will cry, and then I will hire a group of disreputable thugs to kidnap you and drag you back into my clutches.' Then I think she did tear up a little, but it might have been at the thought of getting to hire some thugs; I get the feeling she's never actually done that before and it might be a lifelong dream of hers."

"Well, that's a load of bullshit," Jackson said.

Lydia didn't bother to scoff, she just leaned over the counter, grabbed Stiles by the front of his shirt, and yanked hard enough that his stomach slapped into the edge and his breath whooshed out of him. "Stiles," Lydia said, low and deadly. "If I wanted a comedy routine, I would have asked for one. What. Did. She. Say."

"I just told you!" Stiles protested, and wrenched himself out of her grip, falling back into his seat. "I might've embellished. But she said I was great, and she told me to drop in tomorrow, to sign my contract. It went well, okay? This entire thing was among your best ideas ever. Don't you want to know what she said about _you?"_

It was an obvious ploy, but it still worked, Lydia's attention honing in on him again. She flipped her hair over her shoulder and turned to give him a three-quarter view, probably without even consciously thinking about it; it was her 'bracing for well-deserve compliments' pose.

"Lucy _never_ offers a contract on the first day," Jackson said, before Lydia could receive her second-hand praise. " _Ever._ Not even to _me._ You must've heard wrong."

Stiles shrugged, scooping up the last of his Cocoa Puffs and lifting the bowl so he could slurp down the delicious chocolatey milk that was left over. "I think she's just happy she found someone who'll work with Derek and not walk away with PTSD."

Jackson scoffed. "He's a psycho."

"I wouldn't go that far," Lydia said, but she still wrinkled her nose. She reached out again and Stiles was almost tempted to run, but this time she just laid her hand over his with a concerned expression on her face. "Are you sure about this? I wouldn't have sent you in for an interview right now if I'd known Derek was still going to be around when you got hired. Lucy's assistant _swore_ to me that Derek was on the chopping block. I thought they'd be looking to pair you with someone new, somebody you'd be able to get along with."

Stiles laughed, scooping up his bowl and walking around the bar to put it in the dishwasher. "Derek and I _do_ get along. He's _awesome._ "

"He's an asshole," Jackson said.

"I guess you'd _recognize,_ " Stiles said, and restrained himself from throwing in a Z-snap. It was important to ration that kind of powerful conversational tool, and he'd already used his up for the day. The year, possibly. Lydia still looked worried, though, so he pulled her into a hug, sighing against her hair as she snuggled herself into the circle of his arms. "It really did go great, you know. I totally saved his job for him, so he's going to owe me one in a big way, _and_ how have I not even mentioned yet that he's _hot like the surface of the sun?"_

"I heard he used to do snuff films," Jackson said. "The kind where they throw a human in a cage with a wolf and one of them gets fucked to death. Two guesses which one."

"Those films aren't even _real,_ " Stiles said. "Do I need to send you to the Snopes page again? Or do you have it bookmarked so you can jack off to it?"

Jackson bared his teeth, which had really stopped being threatening ages ago, specifically since that time Stiles had walked into the living room and found Lydia on the couch with Jackson sitting cross-legged at her feet, painting her toenails.

"But she really wants to sign you, long-term?" Lydia asked, ignoring the entire digression like it was beneath her to acknowledge it. "Maybe I should come with you, review the contract. I just want to make sure this is all on the level. Have you even thought about what the next few years of working there would look like, if Derek drops the charming act now that he's gotten what he wanted?"

Stiles shrugged. "Pretty sure it's not an act. And it's not particularly charming, either. But you can come with me if you want. Lucy said she'd have the photos by then, too, if I wanted to see them."

"In that case, I'm _definitely_ going," Lydia said, and it wasn't a request, it was an order. "But for the record, I still think you have Stockholm Syndrome."

"Maybe I just have a weakness for a really great ass," Stiles said, and retreated down the hall to his bedroom, because he actually did have a weakness for a really great ass, and Derek did in fact have just such an ass, and Stiles had had a long day in which he'd worked very hard to keep himself from thinking too much about it.

In the privacy of his room, though, with the sound system cranked up — partly so even the werewolves wouldn't hear what he was planning on doing, and partly so he himself wouldn't hear what Allison and Scott were already doing in the room next door — Stiles shed his control along with his clothes. He pulled back the blankets and dropped onto the sheets, and he was exhausted, sure, but he wasn't ready to fall asleep, not with the constant curl of heat that'd been licking up his spine all day. He had plans for that. And his plans mostly involved stripping his fist down his cock and thinking about Derek.

There wasn't much that was inherently sexy about a photo shoot; it was a lot of bright lights and people bossing him around and holding some specific and terrible pose for a really long time. But this shoot _had_ been sexy, beyond sexy, because it had been Derek's skin under his hands when he'd had to stand and wait as the photographer's shutter snapped away. It had been Derek's throat he'd buried his face in, and Derek's hands on his hips, and Derek's tongue tasting the moles that dotted Stiles' jaw, and Derek's voice whispering really sarcastic remarks into Stiles' ear until he'd broken and laughed and the photographer had stared at them both like they were from another planet.

Derek had grinned too, though, looking pleased with himself, and it was that expression that Stiles was thinking about, the little creases at the corners of Derek's eyes and his cute front teeth. He needed to see that expression again, a _lot,_ all the time.

So maybe it was pathetic, coming into his own fist at the thought of Derek's hands on his skin and Derek's smile curving against his mouth, and if he did it again an hour later, panting into his pillow and thinking about filthier things, well, nobody had to know.

He had it under control.

+++

He absolutely, positively, did not have it under control.

"I can't believe this," Lydia said. She was standing next to him, and they were both leaning over the back of Lucy's chair, so they could see the photos from the shoot on the computer monitor. "I've never seen his face make that expression."

For once, she wasn't talking about Stiles, even though he liked to think his own face was the stuff of rubbery legend.

"I wasn't even sure his face _could_ make that expression," Lucy agreed.

She sounded _incredibly_ smug, when as far as Stiles could tell _he_ was the one who deserved the credit. He was the one who'd leaned over Derek's shoulder, snaked an arm around his bare chest, and whispered a horrible pick-up line in the guy's ear. _He_ was the reason Derek had turned his head just like that, and he was the reason there was an almost-smile on Derek's face. And sure, he hadn't known at the time exactly how perfectly, devastatingly beautiful the actual photo would end up, that Derek's face would look so soft or that Stiles' hand splayed right over Derek's heart would look so tender.

"Wait until you see the rest," Lucy said, practically _chortled,_ then hit the arrow key to show them.

The next picture in the series was Derek's reaction to Stiles' bad pick-up line, and it was... well, the shot itself was incredible, capturing Stiles in mid-air, Derek's arms still extended from shoving him over. The crew had set up a light outside the false window in the bedroom set, and it left slanting warm yellow squares across the floor, like early morning sunshine. There was a tie on the floor, as a prop, and the sheets on the bed were rumpled like they'd only just climbed out of them. Their costumes made the narrative pretty clear: Stiles had gotten up and gotten dressed for work; Derek, still in his pajama bottoms, was persuading Stiles to stay. When Derek had pushed Stiles down onto the bed, Stiles had only relaxed into it, hitting the bed with no resistance.

There was a whole group of photos after that showing Derek following him down, pressing him into the mattress, their hands moving over one another, Derek pressing kisses to his jawline, trying to avoid his cover-up make-up. Stiles hadn't even realized how far back he'd tipped his head then, baring his throat, issuing an invitation that Derek hadn't taken. It wasn't even soft-core, by human standards, but to a wolf that probably looked _obscene._

There was a photo where they were pressed together, Derek's mouth open against Stiles' mouth in some sort of breath-sharing intimacy that had never actually become a kiss. Their bare feet were tangled together and Derek was actually laughing, because Stiles had just suggested that if they could convince someone to bring them a steady supply of a pizza and a games console, they'd never have to get up again. They'd had a minor tussle after that, centering around their philosophical differences on pizza toppings, and the photographer had captured that, too, the sheets rumpled around them, Derek letting Stiles flip him over onto his back, Stiles' leg pressed between his thighs in a way that didn't look even remotely like it was for leverage.

There was a whole chain of stills where Derek was unbuttoning Stiles' shirt, slow, his teeth scraping against Stiles' jaw and Stiles' eyes fluttering shut, dark against his pale cheeks. The photographer had taken so many shots that it was almost like a movie, as Lucy flipped through them: Derek's fingers against the buttons, his head dipping to press kisses to newly-bared flesh, his mouth closing over Stiles' nipple, his hands venturing underneath the fabric once he'd gotten all those buttons out of his way. Stiles could almost feel that touch again, the phantom of fingers against his lower back.

He was so beyond fucked.

To be fair to himself, though, if the pictures were anything to go by then maybe Derek was in similar trouble. Because if an almost-smile was enough to make Lydia and Lucy look like Derek had been replaced by a pod-person from outer space, then what did that full-fledged, soft-eyed smile mean? What was Stiles supposed to make of that shot where Derek had pulled Stiles' shirt down off his shoulders, pinned his arms back with it, and pressed his face into the new arch he'd made of Stiles' chest? What exactly did it mean that in that last series of shots, when they'd curled up together in the bed, back to front, that Derek hadn't minded being the little spoon, had only sighed and closed his eyes when Stiles had pressed his mouth against the nape of Derek's neck?

From the expression on her face when Lydia finally looked up at him, she didn't have any idea either. But she did say to Lucy, "I think you should be paying him more than that contract stipulates."

Lucy groaned and argued, but she didn't put up that much of a fight.

+++

The magazine was waiting on the counter, with the rest of the mail, when they got home.

Stiles didn't even know what it was, at first; he worked the plain brown envelope open with a finger while he regaled Scott, who was home for his lunch break, with the story of Lydia's contract prowess, and exactly how much of a raise it had gotten him.

So when he slid the contents out of the envelope, they didn't even register for a second. He blinked down at them, not comprehending, and then he pulled them all the way free, clutching them together in one hand while he tossed the empty envelope back onto the counter.

The item on the bottom was the latest issue of _Marked,_ an advance courtesy copy sent directly from the publisher. The item on top was a plain note card, and the elegant cursive script on it said, _Stiles, very impressed with your work, have several larger shoots coming up this month that we'd love to have you back for. Call me._ The signature at the bottom was from the managing editor who'd recruited him for that first shoot.

Needless to say, he didn't intend to call. He tossed the note aside and looked down at the cover of the magazine: title and headlines slapped around the edges of a photo of a smirking werewolf, leaning casually on the shoulder of a shirtless human. The latter was facing away from the camera, head bowed, showing off a line of bright red bites and hickeys running up from the small of his back to the nape of his neck. They'd done them in a fucking _pattern,_ a sort of barbed arrow outline that shot up his spine and spread across his shoulder blades.

Stiles had thought they did that kind of extensive shit with _make-up,_ had been _told_ as much, before he'd learned better first-hand. But maybe this guy had liked it, being held down and marked up like that; plenty of people did, whether they were into wolves or not. It was impossible to know.

"Stiles," Scott said, suddenly at his elbow, and he realized he'd been silent for far too long, that they had been as well, undoubtedly noticing what exactly he'd gotten in the mail. "Maybe you shouldn't look at it. I can keep it for you, in case you need the clippings later, I just think—"

"It's fine," Stiles said, and flipped the issue open, paging past a few ads to the table of contents, and then back to the page number for his spread. The whole thing was like night and day compared to the _Mated_ photos he and Lydia had been looking at just hours ago. "I already lived through the shoot, looking at the pictures isn't going to be worse than that."

It was, though. Because the reality of it had been stark lights and a smooth, arrogant voice in his ear; it had been uncomfortable and awkward, he'd been cold and his hands had been going numb. There hadn't been anything _sexy_ about it, except here he was in artful black and white, splashed out across the pages, and each stark line was lurid. They never showed his face, which was a blessing and a curse all at once; nobody would easily recognize him from this shoot, which Stiles was absolutely thrilled with, but it also made him look, on the page, like... like meat. Like he was more possession than person. He supposed he had been, that day, when he'd realized that he was surrounded by predators and there was nowhere to run.

It wasn't likely that they'd have hurt him, or forced him, but they hadn't had to, had they? Because the whole situation had been just menacing enough that he'd agreed, in an uncertain voice, to every unsubtle nudge. He'd been in exactly that kind of situation that his dad used to give safety talks about at the _elementary school,_ and when the moment had come to stand up for himself, Stiles had folded instead.

The second paragraph of the short article accompanying the spread started with, _An ideal partner will behave more like prey, surrendering his body to the werewolf's purest instincts, his own impulses for fight or flight giving way to the instinct to_ fuck. _Of course, he might make you prove your skill, to demonstrate you're worthy to make your mark by chasing him to ground..._

Stiles snapped the magazine shut and pressed it, wordlessly, into Scott's hands. Then he pushed himself into Scott's hold, too, and felt Lydia crowd in against his back, the two of them folding him into the center of a tiny group hug.

"I'm sorry," Stiles said, sighing against Scott's neck, not feeling broken so much as just painfully, massively _stupid,_ to have ever done it in the first place. "I should've listened to you. You were one million percent right."

Scott grumbled low in his chest and rubbed his cheek against Stiles' hair, the same way he'd done since he'd gotten the bite in their sophomore year of high school. "Don't you ever be sorry," he said, gently. "Don't you dare."

Lydia had her face pressed against Stiles' back, probably screwing up her carefully applied make-up, but she squeezed her arms around him a little tighter and hung on. She said, "You tell Derek Hale, if he fucks with you I'll rip his arms off."

Stiles laughed helplessly, maybe a little hysterically, with his forehead lolling against Scott's shoulder. He closed his eyes and remembered Derek's little pleased smile, and how easily he'd let Stiles roll him over, and the way Derek's hand had brushed, just once, just briefly, over the places he knew the bruises to be, and leeched the pain away.

He really didn't think _Derek_ was going to be the problem.


	4. Chapter 4

Stiles slowly pressed his slicked fingers deeper, harder, and Derek actually _writhed_ beneath him, groaning, like he couldn't decide whether to press up into Stiles' body for more or press himself down into the sheets to escape the pressure of it.

"That's it," Stiles murmured, shifting a little to get a better angle. "That's it. Easy. Just breathe."

Derek obeyed, breath rushing out of him like he was surprised that he'd forgotten. He dragged in another lungful like it was an effort, and then groaned, "Jesus _fucking_ Christ, what are you _doing_ to me?"

Stiles smirked, dug his thumbs carefully into the densely knotted muscle at the small of Derek's back, and said, "Oh, sorry, did you want me to stop?"

Derek's response was sub-verbal, but Stiles chose to interpret it as a _no._

"I know you have magical healing powers and everything," Stiles said, smoothing his hands down Derek's sides, "but even werewolves aren't immune to tension."

Derek huffed a laugh against the mattress, and his fingers were clutching at the sheets like they were on the verge of turning into claws. "I'm stressed out by how aggravating you are," Derek told him.

"The worst," Stiles agreed, easily. "I could show you some stretches later that would help, if you want. We could make our next shoot a yoga-themed thing. I'd love to see you in those pants."

"I hate you," Derek said, but it sounded like _more, please,_ so Stiles dug a little deeper, pushed a little harder. The sound Derek made in response carefully walked the line between ecstatic and agonized.

Stiles wanted to _wreck_ him, wanted to pull him apart and pull every last broken, desperate, yearning sound out of him, then put him back together so he could do it all over again.

It probably wasn't the best impulse to have right then, though, with the crew loitering just beyond the pool of the lights, Cindy the photographer circling in for a close-up — she had a thing about Stiles' hands — and Lucy and her new videographer lurking on the sidelines, quietly recording.

The video thing was a little unnerving, because Stiles was awkward on a good day and when he was aware of being watched he became somehow exponentially more awkward than usual. Derek tended to just get quieter and surlier — and incredibly tense, if the state of his back was anything to go by — when the video camera was anywhere nearby. They were only filming behind-the-scenes features for the website, so it wasn't like Stiles or Derek really had to say or do anything aside from what they usually did, but when they'd filmed the first one last week, the whole shoot had been unusually subdued, and Derek hadn't cracked a smile once, ducking the video camera and rushing out as soon as the job was finished.

Which was part of the reason why Stiles was sitting on Derek's ass, doing his best to pin the guy down with his weight if not sheer force of will. He liked it better when Derek lingered a little, shared a few jokes with him, slung an arm around his shoulders as they strolled out of the studio together. Not that Stiles had thought about it. At length.

"Okay, boys, let's heat it up a little, shall we?" Cindy said, and crouched down on one side with her camera poised, ready to zoom in for some more intimate shots.

Stiles was more than ready for it, was _always_ more than ready, and maybe they'd only done six shoots together so far, but he knew almost every inch of Derek's body now, and he was always eager to fall into it, as much as he was allowed. He slid his hands down Derek's arms, knitted their fingers together, sprawled himself all over Derek's well-oiled back and mouthed at his neck, the point of his jaw, his ear. Derek twisted his head like he was trying to catch Stiles' mouth but couldn't quite reach, but he wasn't actually trying that hard, so Stiles pressed his cheek against Derek's hair instead. When Derek shook him off, he went easily, falling back onto the bed, and when Derek leaned over him, teased him with another not-quite-kiss, Stiles tried to follow his lips, failed again when Derek pressed a hand to his chest.

It was frustrating, but not quite as frustrating as hearing Cindy call a wrap and having to just _stop_ altogether.

Derek rolled off the bed, smooth and easy, already scooping up his robe and apparently intent on fleeing the general vicinity of the videographer just like he'd done before.

"So that's the way it is, huh?" Stiles said, mostly to the ceiling. "I want you to know how used I feel right now."

Derek's frowning face encroached on his nice view of the rafters, and Derek said, "Sorry, did you want me to go down to payroll and get your check to leave on the nightstand, or...?"

"You're a terrible person," Stiles told him. "You haven't even helped me up, Derek. I'm frail and human; aren't you supposed to have protective instincts or something?"

"For people I _like,_ sure," Derek said, with a sharp smile and a shrug. But he reached down anyway, wrapped his fingers warm and secure around Stiles' hand and hauled him up with surprising gentleness.

They were still standing there, palm to palm, when Lucy stepped up at Derek's elbow and said, "I need to have a chat with you both upstairs."

Stiles cleared his throat and dropped Derek's hand, but Derek was too busy glaring suspiciously at Lucy to even notice. Lucy, in turn, didn't notice his glaring, because she was staring speculatively at Stiles, in a way that implied that while Derek might not have noticed his interest, Lucy certainly had.

"What are we in trouble for now?" Stiles asked, trying to wipe the last of the massage oil off his palms and onto his cotton bottoms.

"Just put your clothes on and come up," Lucy said, "it'll take ten minutes, tops."

+++

It took closer to an hour, because as it turned out Derek was even more militant about contracts than Lydia was.

Lucy tried to ease them into it with talking about technology, the web, and the future, and then starting in on how much fan mail the two of them got (a lot) and how many hits their first behind-the-scenes video had already gotten (an almost frightening amount), and how much money they stood to make by trying something new.

Derek, stony-faced and looking unimpressed, said, "Something new like explicit video."

Lucy wasn't really being all that subtle, anyway.

Not that she needed to be. Stiles was ready to sign on the dotted line pretty much the instant that Lucy offered him a frightening amount of money to have sex with Derek. The fact that it would be videotaped for the titillation of strangers was kind of a non-issue next to the thought of getting to do to Derek even a fraction of the things he'd thought about doing. He was definitely enough of an exhibitionist that the idea of an audience only made it that much hotter, and the idea of the fiction behind it, that the magazine sold them as _mates,_ that all those people watching would think Derek was _his_...

Well. Stiles was easily convinced.

Derek, on the other hand, cast Stiles a dubious look — Stiles could feel his ego staggering under the blow — and started in on a litany of specifications, most of which seemed to revolve around the hypothetical liaisons happening at a glacial pace and Stiles being offered the opportunity to back out at least every five minutes.

"Wait, do _you_ want to back out?" Stiles asked, leaning over the arm of his chair in an attempt to get close enough to peer into Derek's soul. "I mean, I know we're kind of a package deal with this thing, but if you don't want to do it—"

"I didn't say that," Derek hedged, but he also didn't say that he _did_ want to do it. "But you've never done this kind of thing before, and—"

"Holy shit, you _have?"_ Stiles interrupted, leaning over so far that he actually fell out of his chair and had to scramble back into it. "Is it online? Can I _watch it?_ Oh my god, this is the best day ever!"

Derek didn't exactly break out a business card with his porn URL on it, though. He just frowned at Stiles instead like Stiles was a complete idiot. Then he reached out and grabbed Stiles by the front of his shirt, physically hauled him out of his chair, and dragged him toward the door. "We need to discuss this privately," he threw over his shoulder to Lucy, who was only just winding up for an argument when Derek firmly shut the door behind them.

"Okay, not that I don't find forceful kind of attractive, but this is one of my favorite t-shirts," Stiles said, when they got down to the end of the hallway and it looked like Derek was considering dragging him down the stairwell, too.

Derek said, " _All_ of your t-shirts are your favorite t-shirt," but he also let Stiles go, pushing his back firmly against the brick wall with an implied command to stay there.

"Hey, if you wanted to get my clothes off, all you had to do was ask," Stiles joked, straightening out the shirt from the hem.

Derek didn't laugh. He just stared instead, and then he finally said, "Really?" and Stiles wasn't sure whether that was supposed to be a joke, too.

He answered it seriously, just to ambush Derek with the unexpected. "Really. So I guess the question is, do you want to get naked with me, or not?"

"Who wouldn't?" Derek said, with a strained note in his voice like he'd meant it to come out bitchy and it had taken a turn for the genuine instead. "Don't answer that, it wasn't a real question. Are you _absolutely sure_ that you want to do this? Do you have any idea what you're getting into?"

"I trust you," Stiles said, and the words were easier than he expected. "And I want you. I want a hell of a lot more from you than this but if I've got any chance at _just_ this, I'll take it. I'll take anything, if it's you."

"That's not—" Derek cut himself off, huffed in frustration. "You're saying you want to _date_ me?" he finally said, like the concept was completely foreign to him.

"Yes?" Stiles said, wondering if that was a trick question or if he'd somehow been accidentally _subtle_ all this time. Then he realized that the question mark made him sound uncertain about wanting to date Derek, when really he was just uncertain about exactly why Derek seemed to think that was an unfathomable idea, so he added, _"Yes,"_ in a tone that could only be called desperately emphatic.

"But you also want to shoot porn with me," Derek said, like it was a question.

"Uh, yes," Stiles said, thinking that it sounded kind of stupid when he put it like that. "I mean, I want to get porny with you under any circumstances, cameras not required, but if I could also make enough money to pay my tuition, that would be a serious bonus."

Derek groaned, turning away and scrubbing his hands over his face, but when he turned back his jaw was set in a way that implied resolve. "Your contract will have to have all the stipulations I want in it," he said, and Stiles resisted the urge to do some form of victory dance. He didn't want Derek to change his mind about the sex.

"So we're doing it?" Stiles asked, just to make sure.

"Yes," Derek said, sounding aggrieved about it.

"Is that a yes to the porn, or a yes to the dating?"

"It's a yes to your _face,_ " Derek told him, and took him by the hand this time to drag him back toward Lucy's office. "We're going to do the sex before the dating, though. I haven't had much luck doing it the other way around."

"You are so fucking weird," Stiles said, and it sounded embarrassingly like a declaration of love.


	5. Chapter 5

[A moment of buffering precedes the logo, the word MATED in crisp serifed type. There's another too-long moment of legal disclaimers, age statements and copyright notices and the rest crammed together in a single frame. That gives way within moments to the actual video: Stiles and Derek seated together on a leather couch in a living room. Stiles is leaning back, his arms flung out casually over the arm and back of the sofa, slumped into the cushions and looking relaxed. He's wearing a faded graphic t-shirt and a pair of loose board shorts, like he's stopped by on his way to the beach. Derek is seated next to him, close enough that their legs brush together, and he rolls his shoulders back against Stiles' outstretched arm, like he's inviting a touch. Stiles' fingers skim the crest of his shoulder, a barely-there hello. Derek's wearing jeans and a v-neck t-shirt and he looks tense, the muscles in his jaw flexing, his back straight. He looks to Stiles as if for reassurance, and Stiles looks back, lips curling into a small smile.

"So, Stiles," says a woman's voice from behind the camera. It takes a beat for Stiles to look up, but when he does he tips his head to the side, too, like a question. "This is your first time doing something like this on video, right?"

Stiles nods. "Yeah," he says. His hand shifts again, restless, and he cups it around the back of Derek's neck. Derek leans back into it, eyelids fluttering shut for a moment before he remembers he's being watched. His eyes snap open again, flash briefly blue, like he's annoyed with the presence of the cameras and with his own momentary lapse forgetting to actively glare at them. "We've only done photo shoots before, and those little behind the scenes things, so this'll be... you know. New."

"Are you nervous?"

"A little, maybe," Stiles admits. "I've always been kind of awkward. Clumsy. I'm not exactly the smooth and sexy type. You can't really tell in a magazine spread so I've had a pretty good run so far. This could be the end of everything." He laughs at himself, although Derek is frowning.

"Our readers love you both," the woman behind the camera says. "I'm sure as viewers they're going to be even more enthusiastic. Are you nervous about doing this with Derek, though? You're going to be doing more together than you've ever done in a photo shoot."

" _That_ I have no worries about," Stiles says, with certainty. He slings his arm a little further around Derek's shoulders and tugs, pulls Derek in tighter against his side. Derek goes easily, fitting himself against Stiles' body like it's familiar territory. "Derek always takes good care of me. I'm sure he'll do his best to make me look like I'm not hopeless."

"You're not hopeless," Derek says, his tone chiding. The words are quiet and low, obviously spoken for Stiles' ears and not for the benefit of the camera, even if the microphones do pick them up. He leans in and noses under Stiles' jaw line, presses his mouth to that pale throat and breathes. Stiles tilts his head obligingly back, giving Derek better access, goes a little more limp against the couch. He sighs, and Derek presses in further, twists under Stiles' arm, shifts them both a little so they're facing each other properly, stretching out along the length of the couch, Derek pressing Stiles down into the cushions, their bare feet tangling together. Derek nips at Stiles' neck, his hands slipping underneath the hem of Stiles' t-shirt, clutching at his waist.

"Yeah, that's good," says the person behind the camera. "Derek, why don't you—"

Derek cuts her off with a growl, looks up from Stiles' throat long enough to shoot her a death glare. "You need to stop talking now," he says, his voice low, somewhere in the middle of turned on and dangerous. "We don't need _directions._ "

Stiles laughs, seemingly unconcerned with Derek's tone or the way he's hunched possessively over Stiles' body. "Typical guy, right?" he says. "Can't take directions, doesn't read the manual—"

"Why, do you come with a manual?" Derek says, and when he turns back to Stiles it's like flipping off a switch; the aggression drops instantly away, and a soft, teasing smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. "I'd definitely read that. Maybe there's something in there about how to shut you up."

Stiles laughs again, puts on an exaggerated leer and curls his hands over Derek's braced forearms. "I can think of a _couple_ ways," he says.

Derek rolls his eyes. "Just because it's porn doesn't mean it has to be cheesy," he says, and nips at the tip of Stiles' nose like he's disciplining an unruly pup.

"Does have to be hot, though," Stiles murmurs, against Derek's jaw. His hands shift, slide up to Derek's shoulders and then down his chest, around his sides, to his hips, in one long, unhurried stroke. "Can I take this off? It'll raise the hotness quotient in this room by, like, a million," He gives a little tug to the hem of Derek's shirt, and the fabric stretches tight around Derek's shoulders, shows off the flex of solid muscle in his back.

Derek shows his assent by ducking his head and stretching his arms out. He doesn't raise them above his head, but curls above Stiles' body instead, so Stiles won't have to sit up to reach. Stiles does have to stretch out, though, to tug the shirt clear of Derek's hands; he has to arch his back, his chest presses against Derek's chest, he bares his throat again as he looks up to untangle the shirt from Derek's body. There's a moment's resistance, the material snared between Derek's fingers — it looks intentional — and when Stiles discards the shirt and settles in again, his eyes are hooded, the slant of his mouth smug.

"Don't think I didn't notice that," he says. He's distracted, touching Derek's now-bare skin, running his fingers across it like he's never had the chance before.

Derek lets him do it, shifts his body into Stiles' hands, and indulges himself, too, tugs down the collar of Stiles' shirt so he can lick and suck and bite at the span of Stiles' collarbone.

"Stiles, why don't you take that off?" the voice behind the camera says, and Derek actually snarls this time, his hand closing into a fist at the shirt's collar, the other one doing the same at Stiles' side, like he's intending to keep the garment on Stiles' body by force.

"Man, you guys are acting like I'm so hopeless at sex I don't even know how to _do it,_ " Stiles complains, directing a sharp smile at the camera. He puts his hands on Derek's face, physically directs him away from the camera, drags his eyes back to Stiles. "Easy there, Cujo," he says, seeming unconcerned by Derek's glowing eyes and the fierce set of his face. "We're taking this slow and easy, remember? I can keep the clothes on. I have to retain some of my mystery, right? If they have to take in all of me at once the people out there might faint, anyway. It's a public service you're doing."

Derek's grip eases up by slow degrees, and he just stares at Stiles for a long moment, like he's not sure what to do.

Stiles seems to notice, stroking his hands down the length of Derek's throat. That shouldn't be relaxing for a wolf, not at all, but somehow, paradoxically, it is; Derek relaxes a little, splays his hands flat against Stiles' chest and loosens the defensive curve of his spine.

"You know, in all those photo shoots you've already touched me all over," Stiles says, and the motion of his hands against Derek's face, neck, shoulders, can only be described as 'petting.' "Remember our second shoot, with the art photographer, where he spent like two hours trying to decide where exactly he wanted your hands?"

Derek cracks a smile again, finally, and he laughs, settling himself in between Stiles' legs, letting Stiles take some of his weight. He has to reach up a little to press his mouth against Stiles' jaw, but the position still looks comfortable, familiar. Derek slides an arm beneath Stiles' far shoulder, cradles his body a little closer.

"It's not really an experience I'd forget," he says.

"'A handspan higher, Derek, please, this isn't so difficult!'" Stiles says, in a terrible, indefinable accent, his voice rising to a higher and squeakier note. "'Now, a millimeter lower, if you please. No, that isn't it at all, Stiles turn around, perhaps his hands on your buttocks! It must be evocative! We must break new ground! Someone bring me a jockstrap!'"

"Please stop," Derek groans, and buries his face in Stiles' neck.

Stiles coos at him and strokes a hand through his hair. "You've touched me almost everywhere," he says, his voice deep again, deeper still than it was before, lower and quieter with his mouth against Derek's ear. "But there are a couple places you haven't."

Derek groans again, but this time there's a different tone in it entirely. He shifts against Stiles and his hips roll forward, just once, seeking friction. "Stiles," he says, his voice almost too muffled for the microphones to pick up.

"Do you know where you haven't touched me?" Stiles goes on, ignoring the barely-vocalized plea.

Derek's hand shifts a little, hesitantly, and then bolder when Stiles grins. He slides it down Stiles' chest and abs, presses it between their bodies, rucks up Stiles' t-shirt a little over his belly. He dips his hand lower still, then goes over the top of Stiles' shorts, cups his fingers around the erection that's growing there. He strokes twice over the bowed shape of it, then moves his hand up again to undo the button on Stiles' shorts and unzip the fly. There's underwear beneath, bright red briefs, and Derek strokes over those, too, taking his time.

"Mmm, that's one," Stiles says, his hips pressing up into Derek's hand, his hands clutching at Derek's shoulders. "Wasn't the one I was looking for, though."

The hand in Stiles' shorts stops moving, but stays where it is. Derek stares down at Stiles like he's trying to figure out a puzzle, his eyes flickering over Stiles' body like there'll be some visible sign there.

Stiles licks his lips, lingering and obvious.

"No, you're wrong," Derek argues. "I've kissed you, we've—"

"Not really," Stiles says. He looks satisfied with himself, and eager, his gaze flicking between Derek's eyes and his mouth, waiting. "You've kissed the _corner_ of my mouth and that one time you tugged at my lip with your fangs, which kind of stopped being sexy like the tenth time they asked us to do it because my lip hurt for days afterward, I hope you realize."

"So you're saying the place I haven't touched is, what, your tonsils?" Derek asks, with a smirk.

"I'm telling you to make out with me, are you seriously going to _argue_ about this?" Stiles counters.

Derek doesn't seem interested in arguing. He accepts the invitation, his mouth opening against Stiles' before Stiles even gets the last word out. They clash together, fast and hard at first, and then they find a good angle and rhythm and everything slows down, becomes less frantic and more intense. The camera zooms in, slow and subtle, captures the flickering-together of their tongues, the catch of their lips, the momentary closing of teeth around lip that makes Stiles gasp out a laugh. They're quiet, now, and the microphones are picking up subtler sounds: the rasp of stubble against skin, the slick sounds of wet lips, the gusting of their breaths into one another's mouths.

It seems to go on for hours, _forever,_ so that when Stiles finally cries out sharply against Derek's mouth, the sound is almost shocking. The camera pulls back abruptly, as if it's retreating to a safe distance, but it's only angling for a better view, a wider shot of their bodies. Derek's hand is working again, rubbing progressively faster and harder against Stiles' briefs, the shape of Stiles' straining cock so visible now that the camera can pick up the faint lines of the veins running along its length, the damp spot darkening the fabric. The camera zooms in there, too, pushing closer to the almost obscene slide of Derek's strong fingers working against that shape, his broad palm pressing on it, firm and deliberate, each movement pushing helpless little sounds from Stiles' mouth.

Stiles seems almost struck dumb by it, but after a long minute of twisting and writhing under Derek's hand he reaches down, too, tugging open the fly on Derek's jeans, trying to push them out of the way. Derek pulls his fingers away, though, takes his own hand from Stiles' cock and braces it against the couch instead. He shifts more heavily against Stiles' body, matching his hips to Stiles' and grinding down, biting back a groan, his mouth opening against Stiles' throat, teeth scraping over that skin. It doesn't take long, and doesn't take much, just the relentless rhythm of their hips, pressing together and finding a deep, driving rhythm. The camera can't really see many of the details now, not with their bodies snugged together and their underwear in the way, but it doesn't make much difference; they're clutching at each other and gasping one another's names and kissing again, frantically, messily, until Derek's whole body tenses, his toes digging into the couch, a faint whimper passed directly from his mouth into Stiles'. Stiles takes his own orgasm against Derek's body, pressing up against the weight that's pinning him down, his hand wrapped around the back of Derek's neck to keep him right where he is.

When it's over Derek drops completely onto the couch, wedging himself into the space between Stiles and the seatback. They're both panting, plastered together from head to foot, Derek's leg still slung between Stiles', his face pressed against Stiles' cheekbone. Derek's the one who's a little more than half naked, but it's Stiles who looks completely debauched; his shirt's ridden up and his shorts have shifted down, the fly still hanging open. There's red fabric circling the line of his hips and a dark stain at his crotch that he doesn't seem to be bothered by at all.

When he finally gets his breath back, Stiles says, "You're really good at that. You should do it for a living."

Derek's laughter shakes his whole body, and he buries his face in the crook of Stiles' neck, says something that the microphones can't pick up. Stiles laughs, too, turns his head to capture Derek's mouth, and their kiss is slow, sweet, and cut too short when the video fades to black.

There's another MATED title card before the Replay button makes itself available.]


	6. Chapter 6

The nerves didn't really hit him until after the whole thing was over, which struck Stiles as kind of backwards and strange. He'd just had sex with Derek Hale. Sex. With Derek. The thought ricocheted around in his brain, unable to gain traction because of its sheer unbelievability, even as he stood in their cramped, shared dressing room with his underwear still wet. It had been sexy ten minutes ago, now it was just uncomfortable.

"I can't believe you just made me come in my shorts like a teenager," Stiles said. "On _camera."_ He was leaning back against the door, trying to find the will to go on. His knees felt kind of noodley.

Derek snorted. He was stripping off his clothes, quick and efficient, comfortable in his casual nudity in that way that born shifters often were. There were wet wipes on the tiny side table that he used to clean the drying come from his skin. "I didn't hear you complaining," he said, and turned around with his eyebrows raised like he was about to follow up on that remark with more snark.

He didn't, though. He frowned instead, strode naked across the room, and pressed himself into Stiles, melding their bodies together against the door.

"Whoa, this is awesome," Stiles said, and dropped his face to Derek's shoulder. Derek smelled good, like sweat and sex. Stiles put his hands on Derek's bare hips, too, just because he could, because he hadn't gotten all of that before, hadn't even remotely gotten Derek out of his clothes.

"You look like you're going to pass out," Derek told him. Stiles could hear the frown in his voice. "Fuck, I knew we shouldn't have agreed to—"

"No, I'm good, I'm fine," Stiles said. He clutched Derek's hips a little tighter, worried that Derek might try to move away. "Orgasms just make me stupid. And kind of loopy. For like, an unreasonable amount of time. I'll be fine."

Derek's sigh swept down the back of Stiles' neck, tangible as a touch, and then his fingers snagged the hem of Stiles' shirt and lifted. "Up," he said, and nudged the bare skin of Stiles' arm with his fingertips.

Stiles said, "I thought you wanted me to leave that on," but he lifted both arms obligingly and let Derek strip his shirt off, because apparently Derek wanted to get him naked and he was one hundred percent behind that plan. "I can't get hard again yet," he informed Derek, solemnly.

"Well, you are only human. You're also an idiot," Derek said, but his tone was fond. "I'm not going to fuck you, Stiles. I'm going to get you cleaned up, and then you're going to sit down before you fall down."

"Oh," Stiles said, trying and failing not to sound too disappointed. "Okay."

It was okay, too; it was beyond okay, because there was something unbearably tender about the way Derek carefully pulled Stiles' shorts off, the way his hands slipped beneath the waistband of Stiles' briefs and skimmed down his thighs. Derek wound up crouched on the floor, letting Stiles brace a hand against his broad shoulder as Stiles stepped out of his clothes.

Stiles whimpered, looking down at Derek's head and its proximity to his dick, but Derek only breathed, touched his fingers to Stiles' hips as he stood up again, and ignored Stiles' hands when they tried to pull his body in tighter. Derek didn't seem to have noticed that they were _naked._ Like, together. It was Stiles' new favorite.

"Stop that," Derek said, chidingly, and reached out to snag a few more wet wipes from the box.

"Stop what?" Stiles asked, because he honestly wasn't sure. Stop touching? Stop _wanting?_ Stop getting his feelings all over the place?

"We're not going to have sex. Again. Yet," Derek said, even though his hand was at that very moment wrapping delicately around Stiles' cock, lifting it, while his other hand swept the wet wipe down Stiles' length, over his balls, between his thighs, cleaning away the evidence that they'd already had sex. Mostly. Sort of. "You haven't even taken me on a date."

Stiles looped his arms around Derek's neck and just hung on, because he couldn't even _deal_ with anything that was happening. He said, "Mm, I'm going to date the _shit_ out of you," which didn't even make sense.

Derek apparently agreed, because he laughed against Stiles' collarbone, and then stepped back, chucking the used wipes unerringly into the trash can and turning toward Stiles' locker, pulling out the change of clothes that Stiles had brought in with him. "You still want to do that?" he asked, frowning as he helped Stiles step into a clean pair of briefs. Stiles stared at him like he was insane, of _course_ Stiles wanted to date him, so Derek just shrugged and said, "Okay. Tell me what we're going to do. You planning on wooing me?"

Stiles couldn't help but take umbrage at the teasing note in Derek's voice, like he doubted Stiles' ability to woo _anybody,_ much less _Derek._ "I could," Stiles argued. "I could totally woo you. You have no idea. I'm studying the _classics,_ Derek. I know all the best werewolf romance stories. The Beast of Gévaudan and her courting of Jean-François. The Contessa and the wolf of Gubbio. Gawain and the Green Knight. Ivan-Tsarevich and Galina."

"I'm pretty sure people today are more into online dating than courtly love," Derek pointed out. "Quests and feats of strength aren't really the done thing for werewolf courtship anymore. You don't even have to buy me flowers."

"You're just saying that because you think I can't do it." Stiles didn't really need the help with his cargo pants, could've managed himself, but instead he just watched as Derek carefully pulled them up, shivered when Derek's hands closed the fly, knuckles brushing Stiles' stomach. "I always liked the story about the Livonian wolves and the trials at the Leaping Wall."

Derek lifted an eyebrow, his fingers hooked into the waistband of Stiles' pants. "Isn't that the one where the werewolves steal a lot of alcohol and spend the night trying to impress women by jumping over a wall? _That's_ your favorite werewolf story?"

"I always thought it sounded like werewolves knew how to party back then," Stiles said. "I bet you'd be good at it. Wall-leaping. I should've done pole vaulting in high school."

"I'm not going to judge your fitness as a mate on the basis of your ability to jump over a wall," Derek said. "And if you're considering drunken pole-vaulting as a date activity, I might need to reconsider agreeing to go out with you."

"Don't you dare," Stiles said, and reeled Derek in a little closer, spread his hands across the naked plane of Derek's back, pressed his mouth to the line of Derek's jaw. "Let's go out tonight, so you can't change your mind. I'm going to impress you with my physical prowess, just you wait."

Derek huffed against his cheek and pulled away, shoving Stiles' t-shirt against his chest, leaving Stiles to put it on himself. Derek turned away, reaching for his own clothes, and Stiles tried to remember how that mourning howl went that he'd learned about in his Werewolf Communication and Social Dynamics class. He was literally _that sad_ about the loss of Derek's nudity.

"You don't need to impress me," Derek said, as he leaned over to pull up his jeans.

"But I'm going to anyway," Stiles promised, tugging his shirt on like it was a kind of armor, like he was planning to march into battle to win Derek's hand.

+++

For Stiles' first display of skill, he took Derek to the mini-golf course.

It was a two-for-one move, really, because it would allow him to demonstrate both his dexterity and his cunning. He wasn't even remotely like the heroes he'd read about in his courses, and he was no match for any werewolf anywhere in terms of strength or speed, but he was smart enough to play to his strengths, and he knew for a fact that werewolves had trouble with mini-golf. Scott refused to even try it anymore, which Stiles found privately (and sometimes publicly) hilarious, since becoming a werewolf had made Scott disgustingly good at basically every other activity that existed.

Stiles, on the other hand, was a surprisingly adept mini-golfer. It had come as a surprise to him, because focus and economy of movement weren't normally his strong points, but there was something about the bizarrely decorated confines of the mini-golf course, the constant movement of stupid-looking obstacles in his peripheral vision, the bright colors and fake-grass greens, that made something in him settle. He apparently had one entirely natural talent, and it was using a tiny putter to knock a ball around a tiny golf course.

"I think this club has been jinxed," Derek said, frowning down at the bright pink plastic head of his putter like he was looking for magical symbols carved into the rubber grip.

"I think you need to dial back that werewolf strength," Stiles told him, as Derek's ball wobbled its way around the lip of the hole and rolled away down the sloping green, stopping further away from the hole than it had started.

"If you're going to woo me with feats of strength, I'm not sure you're supposed to be showcasing your own skills to the detriment of mine," Derek grumbled. "I don't think 'courtship' means making me want to punch you in your smug face."

"Uh huh," Stiles agreed, lazily, as Derek's ball _sailed_ past the hole, bouncing with considerable force against the bumpers next to Stiles' feet. "You could just let me give you some pointers."

"I'm fine, I'm going to get it," Derek said, stalking after his wayward golf ball like he planned to eviscerate it.

"I don't think you understand this particular human courtship ritual," Stiles said, as Derek tried to line up his shot. The guy was at par, like, ten million. Stiles stepped down off the curb onto the green, sidling up to Derek's back, slipping into Derek's space as if he belonged there. "This is supposed to be an excuse for me to give you hands-on help."

Derek didn't object, exactly, so much as he stilled and cast a half-glance behind him, taking in Stiles from the corner of his eye, like he might relax into Stiles' hands or he might just whirl around and snap Stiles' face off.

Stiles figured it was worth the chance, snugged himself up against Derek's back, wrapped his hands around Derek's forearms, slid them down until his fingers were resting over Derek's on the hot-pink handle of the putter.

"You need to loosen up your grip," Stiles said, and stroked at the backs of Derek's fingers until he felt them loosen. He guided Derek's left hand with his own, tugging up and then down again, loosely wrapped around the top of the putter's grip, easy and sweet as jerking off. "Treat it softly. Handle your balls gently."

"I'm going to fucking kill you," Derek said, but he didn't actually sound mad, more choked, like he couldn't believe Stiles had actually gone there.

Stiles ignored him, tangled their fingers together, and nudged the putter with Derek's hands, gave the ball a light tap instead of a solid hit. He didn't expect it to actually roll into the cup, and it didn't, but it did arc around slowly this time, coming to a stop just a few inches from the hole, more or less in the same position as it'd been a few strokes ago.

"There, just like that," Stiles said, stepping back with an entirely business-like air, tucking one hand into his pocket, stretching out the other for his own putter, where he'd left it leaning against the fence. "Go ahead, Derek. Put it in the hole, slow and easy. Don't think about knocking it in so much as _pushing_ it, one slow inch at a time."

He waggled his eyebrows, in case that hadn't been obvious enough, and Derek huffed again, then lined up the putter, nudging the narrow end of the club against the ball, instead of using the flat of it like he was supposed to.

"What are you—" Stiles said, and then clacked his mouth shut as Derek slowly, deliberately, _pushed_ the ball into the hole, the head of the putter suddenly remarkably phallic. He even dipped the head of it into the hole, his narrowed eyes on Stiles, like he was trying to prove something.

"I don't know why I'm so terrible at this," Derek said, off-hand, as he stooped to collect his ball and swaggered carelessly toward the next course. "I'm usually really good with balls."

If he followed it up with any other terrible puns, Stiles missed them, because he was too busy tripping over the tail of a concrete T-Rex.

+++

They followed up on the mini-golf with the arcade, where Stiles attempted to impress Derek with the mating dance of his people on a Dance Dance Revolution machine (Derek wasn't impressed) and Derek proved to be a seriously frightening contender at traditional Skeeball (Stiles was definitely impressed). By the time they tumbled together into the bar down the street, Derek was breathless with laughing (he'd redeemed his prize tickets for a plastic tiara that he'd immediately put on Stiles' head) and Stiles was smiling so wide he thought his face might crack, because things were actually going _well,_ Derek was actually, impossibly, _into_ him.

So that was, of course, when it all went horribly wrong.

They squeezed up to the bar together, shoulder to shoulder, not even really trying to get the bartender's attention because Derek was too busy trying to take a cell phone photo of Stiles in his tiara, and Stiles was too busy ruining it by ducking his head until the tiara clattered off against the bar top.

The guy next to Stiles turned around at the sound, in the same moment that the flash on Derek's phone went off, and Stiles could see, out of the corner of his eye, the way the guy's eyes went flat against the light, reflected red. He didn't even have to turn his head and look to know who it was, knew the guy by scent alone, and he wondered if it was always that way for werewolves, olfactory memories practically burned in, permanent and unforgettable, no matter how much you might want to erase them from your mind.

"Stiles," the guy said, and leaned in with his shark-sharp smile. "Fancy meeting you here."

"Hey, Palmer," Stiles said, not daring to actually look the Alpha in the face. "Small world, huh? We were just going to grab a couple drinks, so..."

He didn't actually want drinks, anymore. He could feel Derek tensing beside him, and whether he actually knew Palmer or knew who he was or was just picking up on Stiles' sudden anxiety, Stiles didn't know. He'd never realized a werewolf could give the impression of raised hackles in a shape where they didn't even _have_ hackles, but Derek was pulling it off.

"Kyle was disappointed you didn't call," Palmer said, his body loose and casual against the bar, his eyes hooded, like he couldn't care less what Stiles had to say or how Derek felt about it. "Or return any of his calls. Then we saw the stuff you were doing for _Mated._ Kind of a step down, if you ask me, but you can't tell kids these days how to run their careers, I guess."

"Yeah," Stiles said. He found Derek's hand, peeled Derek's fingers away from the edge of the bar, slotted them against his own instead, and squeezed, mentally pleading for Derek to stay quiet, gently tugging away from the bar, toward the exit. "I guess I'm just a vanilla guy at heart. It's working for me. We've uh... got to go."

"No, stay and have a drink, on me," Palmer said, and the bartender was suddenly there, pouring out a shot — just one — in response to Palmer's gesturing hand. The other hand landed on Stiles' skin, and there were claws at Palmer's fingertips, a tight, threatening pressure against the soft underside of Stiles' forearm. He looked at Derek while he did it, like a flaunt or a dare. "I heard your little magazine's getting into video, now. That must be delightfully nostalgic for you, Derek. Although, I'm not sure anything you could produce now would be as transcendent as your early work. I'm a big fan."

Derek snarled out loud, though whether it was over the jab — and why did werewolves always have to be so _fucking_ cryptic, seriously? — or over the casually possessive hand on Stiles' arm, it was impossible to tell. The nearest people at the bar suddenly found somewhere else to be, and even the bartender stepped back.

"I could see the make-up in that first spread you did together," Palmer said, with a lazy smile twisting across his lips. "It was a pretty good cover-up job, but I remembered all the places I put my marks. And he does mark beautifully, Derek; I feel like I need to tell you that, because you've never done it for yourself, have you? Never held him down and put your teeth into him. It must've been torture for you, pretending he was yours, knowing those bruises were still there, that I'd put them there, that someone had been there before you. But maybe that doesn't bother you; I know you're more into to being the one who's dominated, rather than doing the dominating for yourself."

Derek's fingers against the back of Stiles' hand were clawed now, pointed tips resting against paper-thin skin, and Stiles didn't have to look at him to know that Derek was about two seconds away from starting an actual brawl, which appeared to be exactly what Palmer wanted.

Stiles, though, was done with giving Palmer _anything_ he wanted.

"We're in a crowded bar right now, not an isolated studio," Stiles said, and met Palmer's eyes, gaze unwavering, issuing his own challenge; he didn't have to be a werewolf to know how to piss one off. "The cops are a phone call away, and California's statutes on violent werewolves aren't a joke. You're not going to start a fight. You know how I know that? Because I know exactly who you are. You're a perverted fucking creep; you're an asshole who can't find somebody to mate with, somebody to _mark,_ unless they're getting _paid_ to pretend they want you. You're _pathetic,_ and if you ever come near me again I guarantee you you're going to wind up in jail."

Palmer stared, his lips curled back from his fangs, and then he carefully lifted his claws from Stiles' skin, put away his teeth, leaned back on his bar stool and lifted his hands in a condescending gesture that attempted to imply that Stiles was crazy.

But the whole bar was watching, warily, and the bartender was on the phone, possibly with the police. Palmer didn't even look intimidating, under the bar lights, the way he had the last time Stiles had seen him.

"We're done here," Stiles said, and turned, and dragged Derek out the door.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains more _Marked_ stuff; I'm not sure I want to _warn_ for it specifically or that there's an appropriate tag I should add for it (it's not any more intense than what we've already seen with Stiles) but I do want to make you all aware that it's there.
> 
> My thanks as always to DevilDoll for being an awesome beta and sounding board and all-around perfect human being, and thanks as well to all of you for hanging in there even as my updates have slowed down. YOU ARE RAD.

"I don't get it," Scott said, which wasn't like him because usually Scott got _everything_ about Stiles. They were like soulmates without the sex. "It sounds like you were a total bad-ass. So why are we watching _The Notebook_ and eating ice cream?"

"Because Derek is _the worst,_ " Stiles explained, around a melting mouthful of What a Cluster ice cream, which was usually his favorite but at the moment seemed way too aptly named. "He went completely monosyllabic after that, and then he drove me back to my car and actually _peeled out,_ he was trying so hard to get away from me."

"We all feel that way at one time or another," Lydia said, but she softened a little when Stiles' face fell. "It doesn't sound like it's about you, Stiles. You were getting along before that, right?"

"Yeah," Stiles said, miserably. He tried watching the TV, but even Ryan Gosling didn't help. Just looking at him reminded Stiles that he'd had to rearrange his Hottest Werewolf Who Ever Lived list and Derek had officially knocked Ryan Gosling out of the top slot. That was _huge._ Derek didn't even _know_ how huge that was. "Do you think I like... threatened his werewolfhood or something, when I didn't let him fight for my honor?"

"That's not a werewolf thing," Lydia said. "A strong mate is something to be proud of. Isn't that right, Jackson?"

"I always knew you were proud of how strong I am," Jackson said, and puffed up his chest. When Lydia smacked the back of his head, he yelped like a scolded puppy.

"Maybe it's a Derek thing," Scott offered. "Maybe he's just a butt."

"Maybe he's not the right one for you," Allison said, and she somehow managed to look simultaneously softly apologetic and pissed on Stiles' behalf. "You shouldn't have to deal with that kind of shit. If he's that insecure, you don't need him."

"Yeah, but you haven't seen his abs," Stiles said, mournfully.

"We've all seen his abs," Jackson pointed out, unhelpfully. "You framed a picture of his half-naked body and hung it in the hallway."

"I'm in that shot too, that's a commemoration of my amazing new career," Stiles said.

Jackson snorted. "Sounds to me like _Hale's_ career is the problem."

Stiles paused, spoon hoisted halfway to his lips, because for once in his life Jackson was making sense.

"What do you mean?" Allison asked, frowning her improbably adorable frown.

"He means Derek's spread in _Marked_ , obviously," Lydia said. "How do you people not know about this?"

"Because you haven't explained it to us yet." Stiles dropped his spoon back into the carton, then dropped the carton onto the end table, because he had more important things to worry about right now than ice cream.

"You Internet-stalk practically everybody you meet, Stiles, but you didn't bother to look up the guy you were going to have sex with on camera?"

"I looked him up!" Stiles said, and he didn't particularly have to pretend to be offended by the slight to his research skills. He'd looked Derek up _really a lot_. "I just... Derek had already mentioned he'd done work at _Marked,_ okay, so when I did my image search I excluded the magazine's name from the search, because I wasn't sure I wanted to see it. It just felt like... too soon."

"You should see them," Lydia sighed, and reluctantly abandoned her own ice cream, scooping up her tablet computer and the remote control from the coffee table. She paused _The Notebook,_ switched the TV over to the HD router and flicked her tablet display up onto the flatscreen. She was already searching the web for Derek's _Marked_ spread, sorting rapid-fire through image results.

Stiles' stomach dropped just seeing the magazine's fucking _logo_ in the thumbnail images. "Maybe we shouldn't—"

"They're pretty tame, to you and me, but any werewolves in the room with delicate constitutions might want to avert their eyes," Lydia said. Her finger hovered over the tablet. "Stiles?" she asked, waiting for the go-ahead.

Stiles nodded, reluctantly, and Lydia clicked through to the first photo in the set.

Scott sucked in his breath between his teeth. Jackson managed to look somehow simultaneously bored and completely on edge, his body sprawled out against the arm of the couch but his posture tense and rigid.

The photo was an extreme close-up, the familiar column of Derek's neck, the shape of his jaw — smooth shaven — the wings of his collarbones, a certain amount of nudity implied in the bareness of his visible skin. His mouth was in the frame, slightly opened as if on a moan, but the photo cut off at the bridge of his nose. In the space behind him, another man's body was visible, the plane of a bare shoulder, the swells of thick deltoid and biceps. The focal point of the shot, though, was the hand clamped around Derek's exposed neck. There weren't even any claws involved and it still looked more than a little terrifying.

Lydia flipped through to the next shot, and the next, and the next. The theme was pretty obvious and the execution was heavy-handed, but the images themselves were provocative enough even for human sensibilities. Derek with his face turned away, the other wolf's claws scratching red welts into his back. Derek on his knees, blowjob implied, with the other wolf's hands clamped around his neck. Derek on the floor, with the other wolf on top of him, his own head tipped back to bare his throat, otherwise carefully relaxed like he was trying hard not to move, even though his partner had claws curled against his vulnerable stomach. Derek was obviously younger, his build less muscular, and beneath the bulk of the other man he almost looked small. The photos were nominally anonymous, just as Stiles' spread had been, with Derek's face never really shown, and the tattoo on his back had either been covered with make-up or he hadn't gotten it yet, when the photos were taken.

Allison had her hand over her mouth, as if she was trying to hide her frown, but Scott and Jackson were both staring awkwardly at the floor, not so much like they didn't _want_ to look, and more like they couldn't _bear_ to.

"He was the first werewolf to be photographed in a position of symbolized submission in a major magazine," Lydia said, matter of fact. "Now of course they do it all the time, with omegas, but this was like five years ago, and Derek's a beta. It was pretty scandalous, a wolf even pretending to submit to somebody who wasn't his Alpha. Humans were pretty oblivious to the whole thing at the time, but it caused kind of an uproar in the werewolf community. Derek's not specifically named in the spread, but the copy on the article was pretty gloating. It didn't name his pack but played up the size and power of the family, his status as the Alpha's son... they painted him like an insatiable whore, basically. Not everybody knows it was him, which is the only reason he could even get work at a magazine like _Mated,_ but it's pretty common knowledge, in the industry."

Stiles frowned. "So this is what Palmer meant, about Derek liking to submit? Are you trying to tell me that werewolves aren't allowed to be submissive in bed, ever? Because that seems like bullshit. You guys should fight the power on that one."

"We can do whatever we want in bed," Jackson said. "There's sex, and then there's pack. But those pictures are like... they didn't just make him look sexually submissive, they made him look like he was submitting his status. Like he was selling out his pack just to get his mouth around some guy's dick."

"It reflects poorly on your entire pack, makes you look disloyal, makes your pack look weak," Lydia added.

"Fuck, I knew I hated this asshole for a reason," Jackson groused. "Can you take those pictures off the screen, now? They're making me want to hurl."

Lydia tutted at him, but she still closed the browser, and Stiles scooped up the remote to flip back to the movie, where Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams were still paused in the middle of their tragic interspecies romance.

"You're woefully under-prepared for your adventures in pornography, Stiles," Lydia said. "I mean, when it was just a job that was one thing, but you're putting your heart on the line here, and what do you even _know_ about Derek, really?"

Stiles sighed, dropped his head back against the couch, and stared up at the ceiling like he was waiting for some kind of divine guidance that he knew was never, ever going to come. This was all on his shoulders, and he was already in way too deep to look back now. "I know I'm stupidly in love with him," he said, to the ceiling. "That's all that matters, right?"

Allison said, "Oh, honey," in a way that didn't sound entirely affirming. Scott made a slightly wounded noise, because his powers of sympathy had always been particularly strong. Jackson just snorted.

"It's nice that you think that," Lydia said, more delicately, but it also wasn't an answer. She even patted his hand, and he didn't have to look at her to know that her expression was condescending. "When's your next shoot with him?"

"Tomorrow." He glanced over just in time to see Lydia's eyebrows raise. "I know, it's fast. I think Lucy's worried Derek will change his mind; she's trying to get a bunch of stuff shot before he can back out."

"That doesn't really seem like a good sign," Allison said, hesitatingly. She was probably right, but Stiles was mainly living on a diet of hopefulness and delusion, these days.

Lydia huffed and said, "Ditching you at the end of a date was a worse sign. But don't worry. As your friends, we're not going to keep allowing you to go into this situation blind. You're going to make an informed decision. And if he's not worth the effort, you can just dump him. I mean, keep having sex with him for money, because that frankly is a fantastic arrangement, but definitely cut him loose on a personal level."

"I don't want to cut him loose, ever," Stiles groaned, and scrubbed his hands over his face. Then he kept them there, because he was a little too terrified to actually look at Lydia while he asked his next question. "How exactly do you propose we find out whether he's 'worth it'?" He peeled his fingers from his face to do the air quotes, then scrubbed his palms against his jeans, feeling vaguely sick to his stomach.

"We're going to Internet-stalk him — _thoroughly_ — like you should have in the first place," Lydia said, already turning back to her tablet as if this was an obvious and foregone conclusion. "By tomorrow, we're going to know everything there is to know about Derek Hale."

+++

"Everything" didn't turn out to be much. Derek didn't have a Facebook, Twitter, or Howlr, although there were quite a few Howlr blogs dedicated to Derek in general, and a few more devoted just to particularly alluring parts of his body. He _did_ have two sisters, Laura and Holly, who had a variety of social media accounts between them, but didn't list or mention family members, and both seemed to be fond of rigid privacy settings. (Holly had a Howlr account that was nothing but Instagram pictures of trees and sunsets and lattes with little pictures drawn in the foam; it was kind of adorable.) Stiles had already seen Derek's blandly uninformative Wikipedia page, and most of the photos from the rest of his modeling career, which only spanned a few years after the _Marked_ spread and consisted mainly of menswear catalogs and cologne advertisements. The underwear campaign was Stiles' particular favorite.

There wasn't any video, though, at least none that Lydia could find. Which seemed strange, because _hadn't_ Derek implied that he'd done porn before? Or had it just seemed that way, colored by Stiles' wishful thinking? Had he missed Derek's denial because he'd been a little too busy thinking about what that hypothetical video might look like?

"Maybe he did it under a pseudonym," Lydia suggested. They were huddled together on the couch again, this time by themselves, with Lydia's tablet propped up between them. "If he did it before he got a little more famous."

"Dirk Manly. Abs McGee. Miguel Caliente," Stiles suggested idly, the end of a Twizzler hanging out of the side of his mouth like a half-smoked cigarette. He'd have to brush the hell out of his teeth later; Derek said Twizzlers tasted like licking plastic, and he wasn't going to be eager to chase that taste around Stiles' mouth. Philistine. "Nah, people would have recognized him now that he's a _Mated_ regular. It'd be all over his fan sites. Howlr would have like ten million GIFs of his dick."

Lydia hummed in agreement, tapping back into the search prompt and this time entering "Hale pack," finding a Wiki page on the pack's history and public holdings. They were pretty local, based near the Bay Area, and their membership rolls were private but they had to be a big family, based on the sheer amount of territory they'd claimed, and how long they'd managed to hold it all. Not to mention the real estate and business assets. They had to be _loaded._

"He doesn't talk about them," Stiles said, wondering exactly what that meant. "Not even in passing, like, 'had to dodge a call from my mom last night,' nothing like that."

"He's not the chattiest, Stiles, even with you."

"I know." He tried not to sound dejected about it and failed, miserably.

Lydia put on her _thinking innocent thoughts_ face, which was very close to her _thinking about all the ways I'm going to destroy you_ face, probably because they were the exact same expression. He doubted she'd ever entertained an innocent thought in her entire life. "He's even quiet during sex," she said. "Which was always a turn-off for me, but it works on him. Just makes everything seem more... hm. _Deliberate._ "

"During... wait, what are you—"

"It seemed to me like the only word he could find at all was _your name,_ " Lydia said, with a sly smile. "Your video went up earlier today; you didn't know?"

She paged over to it — already had it open in another tab, _fuck,_ oh god she'd _watched_ it — where the video started autoplaying, thankfully with the sound muted. She pointed a carefully manicured finger at the hit counter.

"Lucy's going to go completely insane," Stiles said, staring at the number with a feeling that he could only describe as awe. There was something simultaneously edifying and humiliating about realizing that _that_ many people had watched him come in his shorts.

"Oh, she's already there; it went online a few hours ago and she's been texting me regular updates. She started off excited and now she's just key-smashing. She's trying to hint that Jackson and I should do it, too; if she'd just _ask_ already we'd say yes. I don't know how she's known us for this long and hasn't already realized the exact level of our exhibitionism."

"I thought it was obvious even before I walked in on you guys fucking in a public restroom," Stiles agreed. "Although that time you asked me to watch really clinched it."

"That was fun," Lydia said, brightly.

She didn't seem to be in a hurry to stop the video playing; Stiles watched himself sink into the couch beneath Derek's weight, and the way Derek touched him seemed like—

Well, he didn't want to get ahead of himself. He watched the Derek in the video and the way he kissed and the way his body moved and that guy was like a whole other person next to the one who'd ended their date with hardly a word, jaw clamped shut, expression fierce and shuttered.

"I'm considering befriending his sisters on Facebook," Lydia said. "If anyone would know all of his deep, dark secrets, it's sisters."

"I'm not sure I really want to know," Stiles said, and it started as a joke, but he realized even as the words came out that he was really, incredibly serious.

Lydia pulled away far enough that she could get a good look at him. "Are you worried I won't find anything? Or that I will?"

Stiles sighed. "Yes," he said, to really cover all of his bases.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter hasn't been beta-read, or even really read by anybody who isn't me at all (I made some people read it and then I rewrote half of it?), but I figured if it took any longer, I would actually die from my continued attempts to get this chapter out. So I'd just like to apologize in advance, should you find any reason to desire an apology.

At around the half hour mark, Stiles figured that Derek just wasn't coming.

Erica was at least making an effort to be more up-beat about the whole situation. She said, "I'm sure he's just... stuck in traffic, or something," but she was frowning constantly, and staring at the glass-fronted doors of the office like she was expecting Derek to walk in at any moment. She kept glancing at her phone, too, and checking the message light on the office phone — it wasn't blinking — as if Derek might have called in the thirty seconds since she'd last checked, and she'd just somehow missed him.

Stiles snorted. "This is Beacon Hills. There _isn't_ traffic." He stared out the front doors, too, but he was past waiting for Derek; now he was just watching the rain bucket down outside, feeling like it was nature speaking to his soul.

Stiles had finally made himself stop checking his own phone about fifteen minutes ago. He'd spent too long already, staring at the text from earlier in the afternoon, the one that said, _can we talk?_ in that completely vague, infuriatingly unhelpful way that Derek had. Stiles had already spent hours worrying over it, because all of his previous break-up conversations had started with _we need to talk_ and ended in some variation of _and that's why I never want to see your face again._ He'd gone through a half-dozen possible responses featuring varying levels of panic and hysteria, before he'd managed to reply with a simple, _Sure. Where/when?_

Derek hadn't replied at all, though. Then he'd continued to not reply, when Stiles sent him messages that said, _Derek? You still want to meet up?_ and _Hey man, you coming to work???_ and _No seriously, Lucy's going to lose her shit_ and _Are you okay? I'm starting to get worried, just text me back alright?_ He'd tried calling three times, too, but they all went straight to voicemail.

"He'll be here," Erica said, but she chewed her lip and peered again through the open doors into the studio, where Lucy and the film crew were all standing around, waiting for the other half of their porn shoot to turn up. Lucy had already moved past angry into the kind of zen-like fury that could only be described as the calm before the shitstorm. The studio rule was models showed up at least half an hour _before_ shoot time, to leave enough time for make-up and wardrobe and getting in that last cup of coffee. If Derek did show up, it was even money whether Lucy would allow him to live long enough to actually get the shoot done.

"He's probably never had to figure out how to awkwardly break up with somebody he's shooting porn with, before," Stiles said, trying and completely failing not to sound morose. "Do you think I'll ever see him again, or will he just get on a plane to South America and disappear?"

"Okay, first, we all know he'd have to go further than South America, and second, not everything's about _you,_ asshole." Erica's voice was level, but hard, with an unfriendly note she'd never used on him before. "Derek's never late, which you'd know if you were actually _friends_ with him like I am, so maybe you should get off the self-pity train and discuss with me whether we should be calling the hospital."

"Sorry," Stiles said, and ducked his head so he wouldn't have to meet her eyes. He'd bring her coffee next time he came in. And maybe a fruit basket. And ask her a lot of invasive questions about Derek and herself and Derek's other friends, because he knew Derek was _friendly_ with a few people, but he didn't actually know the guy all that well, possibly because he'd been too busy fixating on getting into Derek's pants. Oh god, Erica was right. He was a _total asshole._

"Whatever," Erica said. She leaned back a little, folding her arms across the surface of the desk, and chewed on her lip like she was regretting her anger, or maybe just regretting wasting time on Stiles when she had other things to worry about.

Stiles flipped his phone over in his hands, looked at the screen again — no new messages — and unlocked it, thumbing through to the address book. "I was thinking we should start with dispatch; Nancy should be on shift, she could definitely tell me if any of the deputies are working on a stranded Camaro, or an unrealistically handsome man with amnesia, or—"

He didn't get to finish, because that was when the door finally swung open, and Derek walked in.

Well, sort of stumble-skidded in, really. He was completely _drenched,_ his sneakers and jeans spattered in mud up to the knees, and he was panting like he'd just run all the way from San Francisco.

"Holy shit," Erica said, jumped out of her chair and slid over the top of the reception desk like something out of a '70s cop show.

Stiles was a little less bad-ass; he tripped over his own shoes when he hopped down off the edge of the desk, but he managed to recover before he could faceplant, and he made it to Derek's side only a few moments after Erica. She already had her hands on Derek, one against his back and the other spread over the center of his chest, like she was afraid he might need to be held up. Stiles reached out, too, gripped Derek's arm and looped a hand around the back of Derek's neck, but he only had normal human strength, so his touch was more reassurance and grounding than anything else. Whether he was reassuring himself or Derek, he wasn't entirely sure.

Derek looked like hell, wild-eyed and winded, his hair slicked down against his head, clothes clinging in a way that looked really uncomfortable. Attractive, but uncomfortable.

"Sorry," Derek said, the words gusting out on a labored breath. "I'm probably late. Am I late?"

"You're pretty fucking late," Erica confirmed, but the words came out with a half-laugh, relieved and free of censure. "What the hell happened to you?"

"Car broke down," Derek said. "And my cell battery died. I figured it'd be faster to run than call a cab, but it started raining when I was halfway through the Preserve and everything turned to mud. I've had better days."

"It looks like it," Lucy said. She was standing in the studio doorway watching them, her arms crossed over her chest. She was frowning, but the expression had lost its edge, probably because Derek looked pathetic and half-drowned. She didn't take the time to berate him, at least, just said, "Are you okay to do this shoot? We're already running behind; we can reschedule if you're not up for it."

"No, no, it's fine, I just—" Derek looked at Stiles like he was searching for something, but Stiles wasn't even prepared to guess what that something might be. "Give me ten minutes?"

Lucy waved a hand, dismissing him, and said, "Ten minutes. And leave your hair a little wet, you look like sex on a fucking stick like that." Then she turned and retreated into the studio again.

"When she says things like that they sound terrifying instead of complimentary," Derek said. He pressed a kiss to Erica's temple, careful not to pull her in close enough to get her wet, and said, "I'm fine, I promise. Do you think you can find me some towels?"

"On it," Erica said, and headed back toward the supply closet like she'd been given a classified mission.

"I need to talk to you," Derek said to Stiles, his voice pitched low. He shifted in Stiles' grip until they were holding hands, Derek leading the way toward their dressing room.

"So you said," Stiles agreed, and mostly managed not to panic, because they were holding hands and break-up talks didn't start like that, right? Right. So everything was fine. Especially Derek, who wasn't dead and definitely wasn't an amnesiac and certainly _looked_ fine in those clinging jeans. They paused long enough to accept a pile of fluffy towels from Erica — she pressed them against Stiles' chest until he wrapped his free arm around them, and then she smacked him on the ass and told him to "go get it, champ," whatever "it" was — and then they were alone.

"Fuck, I'm sorry, this whole day has been a disaster," Derek said, and then he apologized with his mouth too, swinging the dressing room door shut and immediately pressing Stiles back against it, leaning in for a sweet, slow kiss. It was only their mouths pressed together and the chilly, damp ring of Derek's fingers around Stiles' wrist, Derek's wet body held at a safe distance. "I wanted to take you out for coffee and apologize."

"For what?" Stiles said, blinking. "Being late? That doesn't even make sense."

"No, for last night," Derek said, frowning. "It wasn't okay, how I acted; I let Palmer push my buttons and then I took it out on you, and I'm sorry. I shouldn't have reacted the way I did, but I just panicked. And then I panicked over panicking, and freaked out about whether I'd blown it with you, and then I spent a few hours on the phone with my therapist, which is why my cell battery was run down and I was too distracted to notice. I was on my way back from her office today when the car broke down."

"Jesus," Stiles said, and reached out to pull Derek against him, wet clothes be damned. He'd have to change clothes — or just go without maybe, he _was_ here to shoot porn after all — but it was certainly worth it, the way Derek folded into his arms. "That's like the worst day _ever._ Are you sure you aren't like... cursed or something?"

Derek laughed, the sound muffled against Stiles' shoulder, but it wasn't exactly a happy sound anyway. "I'm not sure at all," he said. "It would explain a lot. Is this— are we okay?"

"Yeah, man, of course," Stiles said, pushed Derek back again so he could cradle that beautiful stubbled jawline between his hands and press another kiss to Derek's mouth. "Are _you_ okay? I was kind of freaked myself. I thought you might've changed your mind, or... I don't know. Do you want to talk about it?"

Derek grimaced, ducked his head against Stiles' shoulder again, and mumbled against Stiles' throat, "If I said no—"

"That would be completely fine," Stiles interrupted, swallowing down the guilty lump in his throat. He should probably call Lydia and tell her to stop stalking Derek on the Internet. In the cold light of day with Derek's body in his arms, it seemed like the worst idea of all time. "No pressure. Honestly."

"Thanks," Derek said, and mouthed at the slope of Stiles' neck, scraped his teeth along the crest of the muscle.

"Yeah," Stiles said. He cleared his throat. "Not to be insensitive to your pain or anything? But my clothes are starting to soak through and you're _really_ drenched. Also if we're not in that studio in five minutes I think Lucy might sacrifice us to her dark gods. We should get you out of those clothes."

Derek huffed, pulled back, but he was almost smiling, a smirk curling the corners of his lips. "One date and you're already getting me naked? I thought I was going to be wooed."

"Oh, you're gonna get wooed all right. I was thinking for our next date, I'd hire somebody to imprison you in a castle so I could ride to your rescue. I'm not sure where I can rent a horse and a suit of armor, though, so I might have to do some research before I put that plan into action." Stiles reached out and gathered the waterlogged hem of Derek's shirt in his hands, started pulling it up and over Derek's head, because one of them had to do the responsible thing and get them ready for the pornography.

"So you're— uh," Derek said, pausing in the middle maybe because he was a little stuck with his arms over his head and his shirt over his face, or maybe because he was losing his words. "You still want to?"

"Still want to what?" Stiles asked. He was losing track of the conversation a little, but he didn't feel like he could be blamed; he had his hands at Derek's waistband, his knuckles against that well-muscled stomach, and he was easing the button open on Derek's jeans. He'd enjoyed some very vivid masturbatory fantasies that started just this way.

"Uh. Date me," Derek said. The look on his face was— Stiles didn't know what to call it, actually. Sheepish? Contrite? Worried? Insecure? Uncertain? All of those things, maybe.

"Of course I do." Stiles frowned, paused in the delicious if somewhat wet act of peeling Derek out of his clothes. "Why, are— do _you_ not want to? I mean I know I'm kind of an asshole, and we don't know each other all that well yet I guess, and you look the way you look and I—"

He was... something. He forgot what he was going to say, but it didn't matter since Derek was making him swallow the words anyway, shoving him back against the door again and pushing the words back down his throat, taking advantage of his open mouth with a biting kiss.

"I want to," Derek said, when he finally pulled back enough that Stiles could breathe again. His body was still there, close, caging Stiles against the door, and it felt good and right in a thousand ways. "I want a lot of things from you, Stiles. That's kind of what I'm afraid of."

"Oh, yeah?" Stiles said. He tried to sound cool and in control but it came out wavering and breathless, instead. He went back to work on Derek's pants, since they were so close together anyway, and dragging the zipper down felt like maybe the sexiest thing he'd ever done in his _life._ "Like, um. Like what?"

Derek hummed, a thinking sound, and dragged his stubbled cheek against Stiles', his fingers skating down Stiles' arm, an innocent touch made weighty with intention. When he answered, the words were pitched low and quiet, murmured into Stiles' ear. "I think about touching you. A lot. Not just sex. I think about that too, I've thought about that since the first time I met you. But. Mostly I think about this."

Derek's hand slid down further, from the inside of Stiles' elbow to his wrist, tracing the veins in the back of his hand, the lines on his palm, until their fingers tangled together and held fast.

"And this."

Derek's mouth touched Stiles' again, just lightly this time, closed-mouthed, and by the time Stiles parted his lips to invite him in, Derek was already moving away again.

"You might be the best thing that's ever happened to me," Derek said, and he crowded in as close as he could get, his sneakers squelching against the floor, his arms wrapping tight around Stiles' in a crushing hug. "And it scares me to death."

Stiles made a noise that under other circumstances he would've found embarrassing, but this was _Derek_ talking about _feelings_ and Stiles' own feelings were doing things he couldn't understand. So he whimpered a little, and he did the only sane thing he could do, which was clutch tight to the familiar expanse of Derek's back and hold on like he never intended to let go.

He might've done his level best to hang on for all of time and eternity, if Erica hadn't pounded on the other side of the door and shouted, "Two minute warning! You better not be fucking in there, you're supposed to save it for the cameras!"

He could feel Derek's smile against his jaw, and then Derek was pulling back again. "You gonna help me finish drying off?" he asked, with an invitingly raised eyebrow, and finally shoved his jeans down over his hips. "I believe we had some sex scheduled."


	9. Chapter 9

[There's no interview to open the video this time; in fact, when the logo fades out and the scene fades in, there aren't even any _people._ There's just a couch, the same one as last time, and an indistinct muttering in a few different tones, like distant voices. Closer to the microphone, a woman's voice says, "Oh for God's sake, would you two just—" but she cuts off mid-sentence, as two figures move into frame. The camera jerks and wobbles, the operator obviously pulling hastily back from the shot they'd been ready for to take the one they're being given instead; the frame swings upward, crawling from a view of midsections and arms, to include the men's faces in the shot.

They're instantly recognizable — an unshaven jaw, a pale cheek marked by moles, the solidity of Derek's frame, the breadth of Stiles' shoulders, the span of their hands on one another's bodies — and the way they move is becoming familiar now, too. They're not paying any attention to the camera or the crew behind it, and Derek turns his back toward it, doesn't even seem to realize he's doing it, while Stiles doesn't seem to mind man-handling him properly back into the shot. Neither of them are paying the camera much attention, though. They're locked together at the mouth, kissing hard and long and deep, like the sliding-together of tongues is good enough to make breathing unnecessary. Derek's hands spread across Stiles' back, holding on like he thinks it'll all end if he lets go, while Stiles' hands are incapable of settling. They cradle Derek's jaw, wrap around the sides of his throat, skim down his chest and then up again, loop around his back and trace the shapes of the muscles there.

Derek's hair is sticking up, unkempt and glistening under the lights like he's just gotten out of the shower and toweled it off, but its state of disarray probably has more to do with the way Stiles keeps running long fingers through it. They're both more or less dressed, jeans and t-shirts, but they don't look like they intend to stay that way for long.

When Derek pulls back, it's not for air — werewolf lung capacity has its advantages — but to speak. He says, "Tell me what you want," against Stiles' cheek, and it's part demand, part plea, delivered in a strained voice.

Stiles doesn't laugh, exactly; the noise he makes is a strangled exhalation, and his fingers flex in Derek's hair, moving across the scalp, carding through the dark strands. Derek leans into it, tilts his chin up a little, not quite baring his throat, but inviting Stiles to mouth at his jawline, scrape teeth against his stubble.

"I'll write you a list," Stiles says, his mouth still open against the point of Derek's jaw. "But we should probably start with something easy. You've had a long day."

He pushes Derek down onto the couch, and of course there's not even remotely enough power in a human body to move a werewolf anywhere he doesn't want to move, but the thing is that Derek obviously _does_ want to. He allows himself to be directed by Stiles' hands, moving without hesitation at the lightest guiding touch, as if resistance hasn't even occurred to him. He settles easily on the couch, spreads himself out in the middle of it, loose-limbed and relaxed, just waiting for what comes next.

The view cuts from one camera to another as Stiles turns his back; the new perspective gives a better view of the space between the two men (shrinking) and the lines of their bodies. Derek's knees are spread apart to make room for Stiles' legs in between them, and his body is an indolent line on the couch, his head tilted back, eyes flickering from Stiles' face to his hands to his crotch. When Stiles sways closer, Derek does too, pulled forward as if by magnetism, hands settling on Stiles' hips, fingers tightening and then relaxing, like he's reminding himself to have patience.

"See something you like?" Stiles says, his tone light and teasing, mouth curled into a sly smile. His fingers are already working open the button on his jeans, then dragging down the zipper, slow, revealing white briefs beneath. Derek lets out a low whine, and the camera pushes in closer, offers a better view of the shape of Stiles' dick beneath thin cotton. He's already hardening, even without being touched, and his hips jerk a little, unconsciously, as Derek leans closer, just breathes on the length of him.

Stiles sinks his hands into Derek's hair again, guides Derek's face close, but not close enough, holds back that last inch, fingers fisting tight when Derek tries to get closer. His cock fills further, stretches the material that's holding it, but he doesn't let Derek move. The camera pulls back again, to take in the strange stillness of them. Stiles is holding himself taut, his body a curled question mark over Derek's, his eyes hooded and dark, breathing hard but waiting for something, holding that last distance.

Derek's eyes open just enough for the pale blue glow of them to be visible. There's a long, tense moment when it seems like maybe this is why they've stopped, that Stiles is waiting until Derek pulls back the wolf, but then Derek's mouth falls open, and he draws in a series of short, huffing breaths, drawing Stiles' scent in.

Stiles pushes forward that last inch, lets Derek bury his nose in the open fly of Stiles' jeans, and mutters, "Good, that's good."

It's better than good, if the expression on Derek's face is anything to go by. He looks drunk, mouth open against Stiles' briefs, pulling in deep on the scent, exhaling hot, wet air against the fabric. When he's breathed in his fill, he starts tasting, too, drags his tongue in long, slow laps along the length of Stiles' shaft, mouths at Stiles' balls, saliva turning the cotton briefs wet and clingy, nearly translucent. His fingers slip beneath the denim of Stiles' jeans and the elastic waistband of his briefs, seeking bare skin, and he groans, looking lost in his own world, swimming in his senses. He gets his mouth around the head of Stiles' cock, draws it in as well as he can manage, which isn't very well with the underwear in the way, and lets out a frustrated moan, tugging on Stiles' jeans.

Stiles says, "Easy, easy," and wraps Derek's hands with his own, pulls them away. He sways back, but not far, just away from Derek's mouth, barely out of his reach. It's one sinuous movement: drawing back, stripping his own shirt off, surging forward again, climbing into Derek's lap, settling himself there as he brings their mouths together again, and again, and again, slow wet kisses that make Stiles' back arch like a cat's and Derek's hips press up against the heat of him.

Derek's mouth finds Stiles' neck next, and it's a hotspot for werewolves in general, but Derek is particularly transfixed, sucking and biting and scraping his teeth along Stiles' jugular. Stiles murmurs something into Derek's ear that the microphones don't pick up, but Derek clearly hears it; he jolts like he's been shocked, groans out loud, and when he puts his teeth to Stiles' throat again, he's got his fangs out. He's careful with them, delicate almost, and Stiles shows not a hint of worry, actually whimpers and shudders, throws his head back and bares his throat.

Derek only accepts the offer that it is for a moment, and then he pulls back a little, visibly struggling for control until he blinks his eyes once, twice, three times, and the glowing blue winks out. He shapes his hand over Stiles' cock, and Stiles rolls his hips up into it, arms wrapped around Derek's shoulders, panting with it. When Derek puts his mouth against Stiles' throat again, he's rough, sucking and biting, obviously intent on leaving a mark. Stiles wraps an encouraging hand around the back of Derek's skull, pressing him in tighter.

"That's it, Derek, I want you to," Stiles says, his voice low and ragged. "God, you're so good, so perfect, my mate, mine—"

Words seem to be more than Derek can manage, in the face of that kind of provocation, and he makes a sound that's half desperate and half already-gone, latches his mouth onto the muscle at the crest of Stiles' neck; there's probably going to be a necklace of bruising around that throat tomorrow, but neither of them seem to care. Derek's hands between them are frantic; he finally reaches inside Stiles' briefs, pushes the fabric down and out of the way, wraps his fist around Stiles' cock and pumps hard and fast, while Stiles pushes up to meet him. The view isn't very good, too many shadows and not enough space between their bodies, the curve of Stiles' back and the movement of Derek's arm nearly enough to screen them from the camera's eye, but no one interrupts to direct them. The glimpses the camera does get when it zooms in are all the more tantalizing: the bared crest of Stiles' hip, the corded muscles in Derek's forearm, the slick head of Stiles' cock slipping through the ring of Derek's fingers.

It doesn't take long, another moment's headlong rush, the muscles in Stiles' stomach drawing tight, an almost pained noise falling from his mouth, and Derek finally finding his words, saying Stiles' name in a voice worn raw. Stiles' fingers clutch at Derek's shirt, desperate, even as his come spatters against it, and he lets out a single sobbing breath as he shudders and sinks into Derek's arms.

Derek lifts his hand to his own mouth, cleans Stiles' come off with long strokes of the flat of his tongue. Stiles turns his head to watch, eyes wide, pupils blown wider than they have any right to be, considering the bright studio lights that are reflecting against them.

"Holy shit," Stiles says, with sincerity.

"Yeah," Derek agrees. He makes a contented sound, strokes his still-damp hand down Stiles' chest, an affectionate kind of petting.

There's a long, still moment, and then Stiles says, "Your shirt's wet. Again. You should take it off."

Derek tilts his head like he's considering it. "I feel like you might have an ulterior motive," he says. "I'm not sure my virtue is safe with you."

"Well _I'm_ sure that it's _definitely_ not," Stiles says. He grins wide, and finally sits up, though he looks a little shaky still, the muscles in his arms quivering when he braces them against the couch cushions and leans in for a kiss.

When he breaks the kiss and leans back, Derek leans forward, chasing his mouth, and that's obviously what Stiles had in mind, because he's already got his fingers curled around the hem of Derek's t-shirt, pulling it up and over Derek's head. Then he wriggles back, out of Derek's lap, his feet blindly finding the floor and his body drifting over Derek's, down and down until he's sprawled between Derek's knees, rubbing his palms over denim-covered thighs.

Derek sinks a little deeper into the couch cushions, splays his legs a little wider, his eyelids drooping and his palm curving around the back of Stiles' skull, wordless consent pretending to be a demand.

It gets the same result, anyway: Stiles' hands move straight to Derek's fly, unfasten it and pull it back like wrapping paper. There's no underwear beneath, just the plane of Derek's abdomen, a tantalizing trail of hair, the thick root of his cock. Stiles wraps his fingers around the waistband of the jeans, pulls them down as Derek lifts his hips obligingly.

Derek's strength is on display just in that one easy motion, the effortless way he holds his body up, his abs tightening and newly bared ass clenching, the ripple of muscle in his thighs, the flex of his bare toes against the thick carpet as Stiles pulls the jeans all the way down to the ankles. It leaves Derek more exposed than he's ever been — for _Mated,_ at least — but he doesn't seem to be bothered, doesn't even seem to _notice,_ because all of his focus is on Stiles.

Stiles, who carefully shuffles forward, plants a knee on the bunched jeans around Derek's legs, hobbling him to the floor. Stiles, who flushes anew along the line of his cheekbones, even down his chest, as he presses his hands to Derek's abs, pretends he hasn't noticed the hard, leaking length of Derek's cock, resting against that flat, muscled stomach. Stiles, who slides his palms down slow, firm, until he's bracketing the base of Derek's cock between thumbs and fingers, staring at the length of it like he wants to memorize every detail.

Derek doesn't try to hurry things along. Instead he drops his hands down, leaves them curled half-open against the couch cushions, even as the muscles in his stomach jerk minutely with every tiny shift of Stiles' hands, every exhalation that brushes his skin. He just waits, and watches Stiles like there's nothing else in the world worth seeing.

When Stiles finally leans down, Derek's eyes flutter almost shut, and he takes a deep, harsh breath in anticipation. But Stiles doesn't close his mouth around Derek's dick, doesn't suck it down to the root. Instead, completely unexpectedly, he presses his nose to the join of pelvis and thigh, mouths at Derek's sack, and inhales deep.

Derek looks ready to cry, though it's impossible to say whether he's just frustratingly hard and ready to come, or he's moved by the way Stiles keeps appealing to the wolf in him. Either way, he reaches out almost blindly, his hands fumbling as he curls them over Stiles' forearms, slides his grip up those broad shoulders, cups Stiles' face between his palms and says, "You don't play fair, Jesus, Stiles, come on, just—"

He doesn't finish the sentence, because Stiles does as requested, licks a stripe up the bottom of Derek's cock, swipes his tongue around the head, and then takes it in deep, pulls up with a twist, does it again. Derek squeezes his eyes shut, like the only way he can hold himself back is by not looking, and he keeps one hand in Stiles' hair, slipping the strands between his fingers, ruffling it every time Stiles' head bobs up again.

Even in the magazine stills Stiles' mouth looks alluring, so often wide and smiling, sometimes hanging open as if in the middle of a moan, as if waiting for Derek to fill it. Now it's just obscene in the best way, the shape of those lips around Derek's cock, the shine of them under the lights, spit-slicked and stretched wide, working with a wet, spine-tingling sound. He's good at it, his motions smooth and confident, mouth and hand finding a rhythm that's clearly working for Derek, that would probably work for _anyone._ His bowed back, the hollowing of his cheeks, the clutch of his other hand against Derek's knee... it's so beautiful it's almost difficult to watch.

Derek's breathing hard, chest rising and falling, nostrils flaring with each inhale, like he's not just panting for air but also drawing in the smell of it, scenting come and sweat and want. His muscles are tensing, bit by bit, as if each dip of Stiles' head is winding him tighter and tighter.

He finally says, "Stiles, I'm—" but Stiles is ahead of him already, pulling off with a wet pop, stripping Derek's wet cock with his hand, and it only takes a couple of strokes before Derek's coming on his own stomach, an animal cry ripped from his throat and his eyes flashing blue, his body shuddering with it.

Stiles eases him down, slows the pace of his hand, but doesn't stop because Derek's still coming, whimpering his way through a werewolf's slightly longer, slightly messier orgasm. When he's really done, wrung out and gasping for air, Stiles gently releases his slowly softening cock, leans in to lick the come from his stomach, while Derek just stares, senseless, like he's been hit by a train.

Stiles says, "Still having a bad day?" and smiles, wide and sharp, obviously confident in the answer, already ducking his head to get back to his incredibly pornographic version of clean-up.

Derek's too dazed to answer, possibly not capable of actual speech; he just watches Stiles lap up the last of the come from his abs, instead. When the job's finished, Stiles drapes himself over Derek's stomach, props his elbows on either side of Derek's hips, and settles there with his chin propped up on his hands, mouth curled up at the corners just from the act of looking. Derek runs a hand over the planes of Stiles' face, like he's committing the shape of it to memory, and he finally says, "No, I think my day's looking up."

Stiles laughs, Derek reaches down to pull him up for a kiss, and the video fades disappointingly to black, just as their lips meet.]


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **ADDITIONAL WARNINGS:** Please note that this chapter contains references to and descriptions of past abuse (sexual implied) and torture of a minor. The level of violence is canon-typical and actually adheres fairly closely to what is seen in season 1-2 canon. (Fuck "Visionary" I'm still pretending it never happened.) There's a use of a gendered slur and the kind of skeevy-ass comments you see on explicit Internet videos. A character is also depicted in the midst of a panic attack, although I tried not to make it too detailed because if there's one thing I've learned about myself lately it's that I apparently have a problem with sympathetic panic attacks. Awesome. I'm on a journey of self-discovery and Iron Man 3 was a little too helpful.
> 
> I've changed the archive warning status on this story and added a few more tags; I'm not entirely sure how to handle warnings for this since most of the more traumatic stuff is more referenced/implied than actually depicted, but if anybody has suggestions I would love them, please do leave a comment.
> 
> If you'd like a more thorough description of what exactly goes down in the heavier segment of this story, please feel free to skip to the end notes, where I'll provide a summary. The next chapter will most likely contain more discussion of this topic but it won't actually be shown again.

Everything seemed so perfect, in the warm afterglow of mutual orgasms, that Stiles probably should have expected it all to go terribly, catastrophically wrong. He didn't, though, couldn't think about anything beyond the tiny dressing room, the warm line of Derek's body, the crinkles at the corners of Derek's eyes.

"So I've been thinking about our next date," Stiles said, swaying in close for a kiss to sweeten the pot. He was already starting to regret that they'd both put their clothes back on. "Maybe we could go really crazy, try a little old-fashioned human wooing. I'll cop a feel in the movie theater and after dinner we can go back to your place and just neck on the couch for, like, _hours._ "

"You know, there's actually no difference between a werewolf date and a human date. I think you ought to try getting your information from a more recent time period."

Stiles made a show of frowning, while his fingers worked their way beneath the hem of Derek's shirt, stroked at bare skin where Derek's incredibly impressive obliques met his hips. "Don't diss the classics, the ancients knew how to get down. There are so many poems about dicks, you don't even know."

"You can read me some on our next date," Derek said, grinning like he was actually looking forward to it. He also opened the dressing room door, bursting their private little bubble, but he took Stiles' hand as they both walked out, so Stiles was one hundred percent okay with it, lacing their fingers together and holding on tight.

"How about tomorrow night? I know you wanted to see that new movie with the monster-punching robots, and—"

Derek wasn't listening anymore. Well, he wasn't listening to _Stiles_ anymore, but he was definitely listening to _something,_ his shoulders going tense and his head tilting a little, that way werewolves did when they were listening to something far away.

The office was pretty heavily soundproofed, to create private spaces where even the werewolves wouldn't have to deal with much sound pollution, but when Stiles listened he could hear it too, faintly: raised voices from upstairs, where Lucy's office was.

"Derek, should I—" Stiles said, thinking _call the police,_ but Derek interrupted before he could get the words out.

"It's okay," Derek said, although his face was frowning and stony in a way that implied that it was _not_ okay. "It's just my sister. I didn't realize she was coming up. You should... uh, probably go. Home."

"Right," Stiles said, and tried not to deflate visibly. Sure, they were having sex, but they _had_ only been on one date so far. It was a little too early to be introduced to the family. Even if the family happened to be in his place of work, apparently engaged in a shouting match with his boss.

"It's not— I don't really get along with my family," Derek said, and grimaced. "And I don't think this is really the time for introductions."

"Yeah, I mean, that's fine, no pressure. But we're still on for tomorrow?"

"I'm expecting a lot of epic poems about dicks," Derek said. He pressed a kiss to the corner of Stiles' mouth, then gave him an unsubtle nudge toward the front door. "In Latin."

"I can do that," Stiles said, allowing himself to be manhandled, but pulling Derek in for a deeper, sweeter kiss when they got to the front door. Upstairs, there was a sound like a wild animal was loose in the office. "Thanks for the amazing sex, by the way."

"You're welcome," Derek said, and physically shoved him out the door.

It probably wasn't the best conclusion to a sexual encounter, but it _was_ a pretty Derek thing to do, so all in all Stiles was satisfied.

He was satisfied enough that when he got home, he threw open the front door and said, "I have just had amazing sex," loud enough for everybody in the house to hear. Assuming there was anybody in the house; he hadn't bothered to check first, but Jackson's douchemobile was parked in the driveway and Allison's Toyota was at the curb, so somebody had to be around.

His confirmation was Jackson's voice shouting back, "Fuck you, Stilinski," from the living room.

"It was the most fantastic thing to ever happen in the history of time," Stiles elaborated, strolling into the room. He threw himself over the arm of the couch and practically into Jackson's lap.

"You smell like a _brothel,"_ Jackson complained, trying to shift further away. He was using Lydia's tablet, but he looked up long enough to sneer, wrinkle his nose, and flash his electric-blue werewolf eyes, which for Jackson was practically a sign of affection. "And you really need to stop ruining my life."

"That's a little dramatic, just because I smell like jizz," Stiles said, but he gave Jackson a little space anyway, levered himself around until he was more or less upright on the couch, stretched out his feet to prop up on the coffee table. "Hey, can you like... differentiate? I mean, could you tell _whose_ jizz you were smelling, or—"

"There aren't enough words in the English language to describe how much I hate you," Jackson said, furiously tapping on the tablet's screen like it had personally offended him.

Stiles shrugged. "You could learn a second language. Expand your horizons. Where is everybody?"

"Lydia's upstairs, getting dressed. Allison's helping."

"Fashion consultation?"

"Some kind of elaborate lingerie," Jackson said. "She doesn't want me to see it until we fuck later. Which is why I'm down here, sitting in the loser's section, doing your homework for you."

Stiles' brain stuttered over the thought of Lydia in lingerie, then Jackson and Lydia fucking — both things he'd seen and thoroughly enjoyed before — and then settled on the last part of that statement. "Wait, my homework? What does that mean?"

"She said you thought Derek had done filmed porn before, but she couldn't find any of it, so she figured — hah! I _knew_ it." He poked his finger at the tablet one more time, triumphantly, and then dropped the computer into Stiles' lap. The corner jabbed straight into Stiles' junk, but the pained yelp only made Jackson look _more_ satisfied. "Snuff films, I fucking _told_ you so."

"You're not even serious right now," Stiles said. He scowled, cupped a protective hand over his poor wounded dick, and used the other hand to scoop up the tablet.

The web browser was displaying a message board in a really eye-bleeding color scheme, with some cryptically-named links and tiny video preview images that didn't really tell him much. All of the videos were labeled "D_HALE," though, and the first few replies to the original post said things like _fuck that was hot, came three times watching, want to shoot a fucking load in that sweet little bitch mouth,_ so it was probably safe to assume that the videos were, in fact, actual porn.

"What kind of forum is this, exactly?" Stiles asked, finger hovering over the first link, almost afraid to click it.

"It's just fetish, Stilinski, grow some balls," Jackson said. He pushed himself up off the couch, and actually brushed his palms together like he thought they might be literally sullied. "I'm going upstairs; if you're going to jerk off to that shit you should do it in your room, nobody needs to see that."

"Fuck you, fuckface," Stiles said, almost absently, but Jackson was already gone.

Stiles stared at the links for a moment longer, drumming his fingers against the back of the tablet, wondering. He'd certainly been through more than his fair share of late-night forays through the shadowed corners of the Internet, had gone on a veritable journey of discovery with his own kinks in freshman year, was totally beyond passing judgment. He had seen sights that he could not unsee, and he was sure that anything Derek had done, no matter how kinky, couldn't be _that_ bad. He sucked in a breath, tried not to think about cliches involving curiosity and cats, and clicked on the first video.

It didn't seem like much, at the beginning, just some kind of bondage scene; there was a woman, who was close enough to the camera that only the black-clad curve of her ass, thighs, and lower back could be seen. She had something long and thin in her hands, maybe a whip, and she was stroking the handle of it like it was the only lover she needed. It wasn't the only lover she _had,_ though, because there was a guy there too, deeper in to the background but still in focus, hanging from chains, strung up against some kind of barred fencing. It looked like the kind of thing they used to hold big cats at the zoo, which frankly made the scene look kind of over the top. The guy was slender, toned but not built, dark shaggy head of hair, and it could have been Derek or maybe not, Stiles couldn't tell, even though he was squinting at the screen hard enough to give himself a headache. Whoever the guy was, he had his fists clenched against his shackles and his head slung low, one of those industrial twin-headed work lights pointing vaguely in his direction, illuminating his flat stomach and the open front of his jeans. There was another work lamp, a table off to the side with shadowed objects on it — was that a _car battery?_ — and not much of a view of anything else. He guessed he wasn't supposed to be looking at anything else, anyway, except the sway of the woman's hips as she paced forward and the tensing of muscle in the guy's stomach.

"You need to stop," the guy said, and fuck, it _was_ Derek, voice wavering a little higher than Stiles was used to. "You can't— you need to stop. Let me go. I won't tell anybody." There was a skip in the audio, even though it looked like Derek's mouth was still moving, like something had been edited out; Stiles turned up the volume, just in case, but when Derek's voice came back, a little louder, all he said was, "This isn't... I thought you..." There were no audio cuts there, he just didn't seem to be able to get the words out. His voice cracked, and he sounded like he was about to cry.

"Aw, come on, Derek, don't be such a little kill-joy," the woman said. The thing in her hand — too rigid, not a whip, a strange shape at the tip, what _was_ that — swung between her fingers like a pendulum. She strolled closer to Derek, casual, and she touched his body like it was something of hers, too, as much of a prop as the work light that she leaned on next. "Cut loose a little. Show all the people at home what an _animal_ you really are."

Derek flinched back from the words, and from the sudden brightness, when the woman tilted the light up toward his face. He looked young, Jesus, he looked— he couldn't have been more than fifteen, sixteen, and god this wasn't porn, this was— this was _criminal,_ statutory at very _least,_ and Derek didn't look like he wanted to be there, not even remotely, especially when the woman brought up the stick in her hand and flicked it into his side. Derek's face shifted, his ears stretching out, fanged teeth clenching in a reflexive grimace and then snapping open wide as the stick — oh fuck, shit, that was a _cattle prod_ — made contact and poured what couldn't possibly be a legal amount of current right into his skin.

With the volume on the tablet turned up, Derek's howling scream was terrifyingly loud; Stiles dropped the tablet with a clatter, felt his stomach drop with it. He could hardly feel his legs as he got up and scrambled toward the bathroom, but he could hear the crackling sound of electricity in the video, could hear the woman laughing, remembered the way Palmer had said he was a big fan of Derek's _early work,_ called it _transcendent,_ and Stiles was going to be sick, possibly forever. He made it to the toilet at least before he threw up, violently and painfully, until there was nothing left in his stomach but the hollow.

"Stiles?"

He hadn't bothered to close the door, and Allison was already inside, her long-fingered hand against his back, easing him down against the opposite wall. He was shaking and he was pretty sure he looked like hell, and just half an hour before he'd been kissing Derek's mouth and then he'd come home and pissed all over everything just by clicking that one fucking link. He _hated_ himself.

"Stiles, you're freaking me out," Allison said, and Lydia appeared in the doorway too, frowning, dressed to the nines and larger than life in stiletto heels, Jackson trailing behind her like he always did.

"Boyfriend turn out to have some kinks you can't handle?" Jackson said, and whether that worried look on his face was because of Stiles or because of what he knew Lydia could do to him, Stiles couldn't tell. It certainly didn't match up with the bravado in his words.

He couldn't deal with anybody else's problems just then, though. His own were enough. He thumped his head back against the wall, willed himself not to cry, but his face was already wet when he scrubbed his hands over it.

"Fuck you," he said, and his voice was a scraped-out croak, and his heart wasn't in it. "I shouldn't— why the fuck did I want to know about that? Jesus Christ. I'm so fucking stupid."

"What was it?" Lydia asked, and when Stiles didn't answer she rounded on her mate, instead. "You found the video? Jackson, _what was it?"_

"Don't look at me, I didn't even watch it, I just gave it to him," Jackson said. "Look, Stilinski, I've seen some of that stuff, and it's _fake,_ okay? I mean it's like... it's a kink, right? There's this woman in New Mexico, she's got all these scars, but that's what she _likes,_ she takes werewolves to bed and she likes them to mark her up as they fuck her, right, it's kind of like scarification, she even tells them where to do it to build the pattern she wants. But it's all consensual okay, it's—"

"It was the other way around," Stiles croaked out, just to make Jackson _stop,_ because Stiles couldn't stop himself, couldn't stop seeing it behind his fucking eyelids, even when he pressed the heels of his palms against them until he saw stars. The timer on that video had said it was over an hour long, and there'd been eight videos linked, and there was no universe in which Stiles would be watching any of them, but it didn't matter, because he was cursed with an overactive imagination and an ability to do basic math. "And it didn't look real consensual to me. I guess it's easier to get away with torturing somebody when they're healing before you're even done hurting them."

"Oh my god. Was it— it was Derek?" Allison's voice wavered over the words, like she didn't want to ask but needed to know exactly how much of a mess Stiles had made of himself.

As if in answer, the sound of another anguished, bitten-off scream drifted through from the living room.

It sounded far away, at least, just like Lydia's voice snapping at Jackson to _go turn that off, for god's sake, you idiot_ and Allison asking Stiles if he was okay. He wasn't. He could feel the panic attack coming, like he was riding on the edge of a wave that was about to break, about to break _him,_ and there was nothing to do but hold on. He was breathing too hard, and his ears were ringing, and he didn't know how to fix this, because he'd ruined _everything._

He clutched at Allison and she held onto him, so tight it almost hurt, but the wave sucked him under anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's that summary I promised: Stiles discovers Derek's previous "porn" work, and watches a part of one video in which an underage Derek is restrained and tortured with electricity, a lot like what we saw with Kate in the end of season one on the show. From the content of the video it can be assumed that Derek is not a willing participant. The video is posted on a fetish-oriented website with viewer comments implying that at least some of the content of the multiple videos posted is explicitly sexual. What he sees of the video and the implications of it cause Stiles to have a panic attack.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **ADDITIONAL WARNINGS:** This chapter contains discussion of past abuse of a minor, both physical and sexual, as well as the repercussions of that. This is all discussion of what we learned about in the last chapter. The descriptions are not explicit but may be difficult; if you'd like more details on exactly what's discussed here before you read, please feel free to leave a comment or otherwise get in touch and I'll do what I can to help. Likewise if anyone has suggestions on additional warnings/tags that I should add, please do let me know.
> 
> And I promise in the next part things are going to lighten up. ;D As always, a million thanks to DevilDoll for the beta, particularly with these last few chapters which were extremely difficult to write; this story would be kind of terrible without her input. :D

Stiles fell asleep with a pounding headache, a taste in his mouth that was a combination of minty toothpaste and shame, and Allison curled around his back like a fiercely protective she-bear.

When he woke, there was a broad hand sifting through his hair, fingers dragging rhythmically over his scalp, and the warm weight of Derek's body pressed against his back. He was sure he hadn't slept long, maybe a few hours, but the light in the room had dimmed considerably, and it was raining outside again; he could hear it drumming against the window.

He cleared his throat and said, "What are you doing here?" The words came out croaked, which wasn't unexpected. He tried to blink the sleep from his eyes, but he didn't move, didn't want Derek's hand to stop doing what it was doing.

"Lydia called me," Derek said, and he didn't sound angry, he just sounded... kind of flat. "She said you had a panic attack. Is that something that happens often?"

Stiles rolled onto his back, hooked his arm under Derek's knee and pressed his cheek against Derek's hip. Derek was propped up against the headboard, distant somehow for all that Stiles was practically in his lap.

"Nah. I mean, not in a long time. Kind of took me by surprise."

"So I'm told," Derek said. His face looked severe and shadowed, almost gaunt, splashed with sickly yellow light from the dim bulb of Stiles' desk lamp. "Lydia told me what you found. You probably have questions."

"None that I deserve answers to," Stiles said. He'd rolled himself belly-up on purpose, stretched his neck back to look up at Derek's face, couldn't think of another way to make himself more vulnerable, unless he'd gotten naked first. "Derek, I— I'm really sorry. I shouldn't have invaded your privacy that way, I should have just _asked_ you in the first place, and—"

"It's on the Internet," Derek said. He didn't look angry about it. He just looked tired. "Not exactly a secret. I probably should've just told you early on, gotten it over with. I guess I thought if you knew... well, I don't know what I thought."

"Derek—"

"Her name was Kate," Derek said, and he sank back against the headboard, tipped his head back against the wall, like he couldn't tell the story and look at Stiles at the same time. "I was sixteen, and she was... well. Older. She pursued me, instead of the other way around, and it was all really exciting, you know, illicit, because my family couldn't know, it was illegal, I couldn't tell _anybody._ That made it better. She was the first person I ever had sex with, and she was into things that... I felt like I was more mature than everybody else just knowing what some of that stuff _was,_ much less actually _doing_ it. When she started with the video camera it wasn't a big deal. She liked to tape us fucking, and then watching it back would make her hot, you know, make her want to go again."

Derek paused, his throat bobbing as he swallowed. Stiles stayed where he was, stayed quiet, stroked his thumb over the inseam of Derek's jeans and clenched his teeth, ready to hear it out in silence. Derek wanted to talk and he'd always listen, of course he would, but hearing it was a kind of penance, too. He couldn't help picturing the Derek he'd seen in that video, how young Derek had been, not grown into his frame yet, voice still wavering over a slightly deeper register, and there was an ache in his chest for that boy, who hadn't known what he was getting into.

"It was her idea, to leave for the weekend; I told my parents I was going to Tahoe with some buddies, and she said she had a friend with a rental house we could borrow on Pyramid Lake. I packed my fucking swim trunks and she— well, she didn't need to pack, she already had that house set up with everything she needed. She kept me for three days, before she set me loose, just kicked me out. I hitched home. My parents were _livid."_

"At you?" Stiles' voice cracked on the words, because suddenly it made sense: the distance from his family, the fact that he hardly even mentioned them, even if he was still technically a pack member. Stiles thought about how it would feel to lose his dad like that, and then he had to make himself _stop_ thinking about it because it made him want to panic again, just contemplating the idea. He reached out his hand, tangled his fingers together with Derek's and held on for dear life.

"At me," Derek repeated, numbly. He looked down at their joined hands, swept his thumb down against Stiles' palm, like _he_ was comforting _Stiles,_ and if that wasn't completely backward, Stiles didn't know what was. "I didn't tell them what had happened, they just knew I was _days_ late coming back and I'd lied about where I was going. I didn't tell anyone about it, for a long time. I figured it was all my fault, pushed my parents over and over trying to get them to punish me, but that didn't help, so... I went off the rails for awhile. I did a lot of things I shouldn't have done, I even dropped out of school, but that spread in _Marked_ was the last straw for my parents. Which was exactly what it was supposed to be. I wanted to do something bad enough that they'd send me away from the pack entirely, because I thought that was the best thing for them."

"Derek," Stiles said, and didn't know what else to say, what else to _do._ He wanted to pull Derek into his arms, kiss him until that blank expression on his face cracked. But none of this was about what Stiles wanted, and Derek obviously didn't need anybody upsetting his equilibrium, either. It was hard enough just to keep himself together, hearing all of it laid out that way, knowing Derek was being vague with some of it to spare Stiles from the details. He couldn't know how it'd felt for Derek, to be dealing with that and doing it alone, when he'd probably always had a pack around him before, people to pick him up, family to lean on. And if he _still_ felt alone like that, all the time... Stiles tried to bite back the strangled sound that wrenched itself from his own throat, but he wasn't entirely successful, and the way Derek ran a soothing hand around the curve of his skull just made him feel _worse._

"It was one of the guys at _Marked_ who told me he'd seen the videos. Suggested a reenactment, actually." Derek smiled, if the expression could be called that, when it implied that true happiness was a bloodbath. "That was when I decided to go to Laura. She was working on a criminal justice degree, and she knew what to do... who to talk to, how to go about it, what kind of evidence we'd need. Kate probably thought she was letting me in for a lifetime of torment, putting those videos online, but they were also more than enough evidence to convict her. None of the statutes were up yet, so she got hit with a _lot_ of charges. There was what she did, in itself, but also we'd gone across the state line into Nevada, which made some of it federal, and then there was the fact I was a minor, and clear evidence it was a hate crime... she won't be getting out anytime soon."

"Thank fucking _Christ,"_ Stiles breathed, and he finally pushed himself up, unable to keep that careful distance anymore, needing to be closer, to offer himself into Derek's space and hope he was still accepted there. "But you— how can you stand to do what you do? How can you stand _me?_ God, Derek, I talked you into doing porn, I don't—"

"That's not the same thing, _don't you dare_ say it's the same," Derek interrupted, the blank look on his face replaced instantly by something that looked like terror and fury, all rolled into one. Stiles stilled exactly where he was, awkwardly half-crouched, not quite on his knees, curled up like a question mark and not wanting to move for fear of jostling Derek's calm, but Derek was the one who reached out, grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him in. Stiles let himself be moved, settled close and comfortable on his knees between Derek's spread legs, where they could look each other in the eye. "I _wanted_ you, and I never did anything I didn't want to do, so don't you ever compare yourself to her."

"Okay. So tell me what it is. Because if you're still looking for ways to punish yourself—"

 _"No,"_ Derek said, and if the word itself wasn't convincing enough then the horrified look on his face probably was. "That's not— I already went through that, with my parents. It wasn't exactly a winning strategy. I've been in therapy for a couple of years, and it's helped. I've come to terms with things. I know you're freaking out because this is all news to you. But for me it's the past. It's not something I can change, but I deal with it pretty well these days, and it's got nothing to do with you. You're not a punishment, Stiles. You're a _gift."_

Stiles' heart certainly felt like offering itself up in a neatly tied bow; it tripped over itself in eagerness at the idea, but the rest of him wasn't so sure it was that simple. "You've got me," he said, and he kept his hands on Derek's skin like an anchor, tried to push that feeling of _together_ and _us_ and _always_ right through his fingertips into Derek's body, like they could be bound together at the roots. "You've got me, with the job or without it. I just can't see how it's okay for you to still be doing the work we do, if it started with _Marked_ and trying to destroy yourself. Is it... are you _okay,_ when you come to work?"

"It's my job," Derek said, frowning, like he didn't quite understand the question. "What I did then and what I do now, they're not even remotely the same thing, to me. It's not like I had some big ambition to model, I didn't mean to get into it in the first place, but I like it. When everything with Kate was done, I started getting my life together. Laura and Lucy were still roommates then, and they let me move in for awhile, helped me out a lot while I got my GED. Lucy got me started with therapy. Laura got me enrolled in college. I still didn't want my parents to know about what had happened, I made Laura _swear_ she wouldn't tell them, but she talked them into paying my tuition; I just had to come up with some money to live on. Lucy was doing her degree at a fashion design school, so she started hooking me up with students who needed a model, and then I was approached by an agency, and it just sort of happened."

"I've seen some of that," Stiles said, cautiously. "The clothing and underwear ads, right? I _really_ liked the underwear ads."

"Did you?" Derek said. His mouth hitched up at the corners with a pleased little curl, his eyelids drooped alluringly, and it was like Stiles could _see_ him thinking about sex. "That's part of what I always liked about it. Being looked at. Knowing somebody's wanting. Knowing it's on my terms, this time."

"But another skin magazine?"

Derek shrugged, but he also stroked his hands down Stiles' sides, absently, almost petting. "The agency dropped me when I was finishing my last semester, and I didn't actually have any other job skills. I talked to Lucy, hoping she could put me on to some more work, and she was just getting _Mated_ off the ground. She thought it was a bad idea; I had to beg her to give me a shot, but it got me through graduation, and it's not really that different from any other modeling job. I was beginning to think she was right, though, that I should just quit and save her the aggravation, because I wasn't getting along with anybody. And then you walked in."

"Yeah," Stiles said, and his grin was probably dopey but he couldn't bring himself to care, because he absolutely remembered that, Derek's glower over sandwiches, and he still kind of thought of it as their first date. "But—"

"I can set my own boundaries without your input," Derek interrupted, gently, and kissed his mouth, just as carefully. "I know this is new for you, but it's not for me. Okay?"

"Yeah, of course," Stiles said, and felt like an idiot, because. Well. He kind of was, wasn't he? "I just don't want to ever pressure you into anything."

"I won't let you," Derek said, like it was simple, and Stiles supposed it was, because taking care of each other didn't mean they stopped taking care of themselves. "So I want to keep doing my job, as long as you're there, and I want to keep fucking you on camera because it turns out I really like that, and I want to fuck you _off_ camera too."

"I'm in complete agreement with all of those things," Stiles said, and felt the tension in his shoulders ease because they could do this, they were doing this, and if Derek said he was fine, then he was fine. Stiles wound his arms around Derek's neck, closed the last distance, and they kissed like they could eat each other alive and live on the meat of what was between them forever.

"And you promised me another date," Derek reminded, when he finally broke off to let Stiles breathe.

"Fucking right, I'm taking you on another date," Stiles said. _"All_ the dates. Every kind of date."

Derek smiled against his mouth, gave him another kiss — short, sweet, almost a peck really — and then tilted their foreheads together, so close they had nowhere to look but into each other's eyes and nothing to breathe but the air from each other's lungs.

"Tell me something about your feelings," Derek said. "I've been told this is how you can make somebody like you more."

And the thing was, Stiles couldn't like him more; Stiles was pretty sure 'like' just wasn't an adequate description at that point. So he said, "I love you," and it should've been too scary, too big, too soon. Instead it was just as easy as that: looking into Derek's eyes, touching Derek's skin, and feeling the words down to his bones.


	12. Chapter 12

When Stiles woke up, he was alone in his bed. He felt hung over; he was still wearing his jeans and shirt, though somebody had thoughtfully pulled off his shoes, and there was a stale taste in his mouth, a gritty feeling beneath his eyelids, a headache pounding at the back of his head. He needed water, a shower, probably some food, and to see Derek's face again. Not necessarily in that order.

Derek hadn't left a note, or a text, which wasn't surprising but was just slightly disappointing, the same way his absence was disappointing; Stiles couldn't exactly blame him for needing some space or taking off, but it would've been nice, anyway, if he'd stayed. Still, Stiles had woken to the smell of him on the sheets, and the tiles in the shower were still warm with residual heat, and that was almost enough, until Stiles shuffled out into the kitchen in search of food and found Derek standing in front of the range, tending to breakfast.

Lydia was perched on one of the stools at the countertop, her carefully manicured fingers tapping away at her tablet, her bare toes curled delicately around the foot rest. She was still in her pajamas, soft cotton bottoms with cartoon foxes on them, a gift from Stiles three Christmases ago; somehow she still looked put together, even with her hair in a messy ponytail and her eyes half-lidded, like she hadn't had any intention of being awake this early.

When Stiles walked in, Derek was saying, "I don't really know. I'm pretty sure my lawyer does... something. He sends letters, maybe, I'm not sure."

"Not for me, I hope," Stiles said, with more bravado than he actually felt. He didn't let himself hesitate, just walked right into the kitchen, slipped in close against Derek's back, wrapped his arms around Derek's body and copped a feel of those truly unbelievable abs. Derek didn't seem to mind. "I don't think I've earned a restraining order yet."

Derek snorted, turning over the bacon — _bacon,_ dear god, and a separate pan with eggs, Stiles was going to marry the fuck out of him — with a pair of tongs. "Your ass _is_ criminal," he said, with a waggle of his eyebrows, and leaned back a little into Stiles, turning his head to accept a kiss on the mouth.

"You're stealing all my best lines," Stiles groused, even though he didn't actually mind. "I'd complain but I'm too turned on."

"Well, whatever your lawyer is doing clearly isn't good enough," Lydia said, ignoring them both. "These aren't the kinds of people who care about a cease and desist. I'll talk to Danny, we can explore some different options, fight fire with fire, so to speak."

"Yeah, okay," Derek agreed, and he shrugged his shoulder, so of course Stiles had to kiss that, too. It was all surprisingly easy, considering the weight of their last conversation. Maybe things could always be easy between them, and it was just Stiles making everything too difficult for himself.

Stiles wasn't sure he wanted to know, but he couldn't help asking anyway. "What are you guys talking about?"

"Getting Derek's videos off the web," Lydia said. "I'm his new manager. I'm your manager too, by the way. You're both too stupid to exist in the world on your own."

"That's great, we can be stupid together, with consolidated management," Stiles agreed. He leaned in closer, nibbled at the edge of Derek's ear, and said, "I'm stupid about you, by the way. So it's your fault. Can I have some bacon?"

"In a minute," Derek said. "It's not ready yet. Where are your plates?"

Stiles pulled the dishware down from the cupboard and absolutely didn't feel stupidly domestic, at all, except that he _did._ He wanted to crowd into Derek's space, to plant soft, slow kisses against the bowed back of Derek's neck, to wrap his fingers around the shape of Derek's hip bones and just stay there like that, maybe forever. Instead he put a short stack of plates on the counter within Derek's reach and stepped back, giving himself space, leaning against the sink. He was too aware of Lydia, even if she wasn't watching them and wouldn't care; he could hear Scott and Allison stirring in their room down the hall. He was, if he was honest with himself, suddenly shy of having an audience. Plenty of people had seen them touch, seen them fuck, but the tenderness swelling in his heart was something different, something private, something he didn't need the whole world or even his closest friends to see, not yet, maybe not ever.

Still, it was surprisingly comfortable to crowd into the kitchen with all of them, the whole household drawn together by the smell of bacon and eggs, Scott groaning around the first mouthful and inviting Derek to stay forever, and Allison giving them both an approving, sunny, good-morning smile. Stiles and Derek ate standing on the other side of the breakfast bar, since there were only three chairs, but they pressed themselves together at shoulders and hips, and the warmth of the contact spread through Stiles' skin like the heat of the sun.

Derek was obviously a morning person, which should by rights have been revolting and break-up-worthy, but Stiles was quietly pleased about it instead; it'd take awhile for his brain to really come on-line, but he listened to Derek and Lydia gossip about their coworkers — there was apparently a surprisingly level of general staff drama at _Mated_ that Stiles had been completely unaware of — and thought he wouldn't mind doing this every morning for approximately _forever._

"You have any plans for today?" Derek asked him, low and quiet, when they'd both cleaned their plates and Derek was running his dishes beneath the tap.

Stiles shrugged. "Not really. I don't have any classes today, and we're not scheduled to shoot again until Tuesday. Why, did you have something in mind?"

"I thought maybe I could take _you_ on a date for a change. Show you what actual werewolf wooing is like."

"Hm, I don't know," Stiles said, pulling an exaggerated contemplative face. "Is it going to involve any kind of blood rites or animal sacrifice? Will I have to run naked through the woods?"

Derek snorted. "I'll try not to judge, if that's what you're into. I was thinking maybe coffee, a walk around the park, something like that."

"You're letting your ancestors down," Stiles told him.

"Yeah, well, I'm not trying to date my ancestors," Derek said. "Are you in, or should I go find another boyfriend? I could, you know."

"You totally could," Stiles agreed, warmly. He even managed not to do any kind of victory dance at the word _boyfriend_ from Derek's lips in reference to his person. "But you won't, because I'm so awesome."

"It would be more effort than it's worth," Derek conceded, and gave Stiles a shove that told him he should go get his shoes on, because Derek Hale wanted to date him, and who was he to say no?

+++

He probably should have said no.

Not in general. Just the once. He should've had plans or signed up for another class or run away with the circus or something, at least for a little while, at least long enough for Derek's sister to leave town. Instead he was sitting at a table outside a cafe, and Derek's sister was on the other side of that table, and Stiles wasn't entirely sure that he was going to come out of the situation alive.

It was only a small comfort that Derek didn't look any happier about it. He had his knee pressed against Stiles' beneath the table, and he was holding on to Stiles' hand for dear life, and there was something hunted in his expression.

"So, Stiles," Laura said. "Tell me about your family." She'd been aggressively _not_ saying anything about the fact that he'd roped her brother into filming porn, which was infinitely worse than just straight-out accusing him of something. Stiles kept expecting her to spring it on him at any moment, and the fact that she _wasn't_ left him floundering every time she asked him something _else_.

"Oh, well, uh," Stiles said, which was a great start. He'd stumbled just as much when she'd asked him about school, and his major, and his hobbies. It was worse than a job interview. He wanted to _die._ "It's just me and my dad. My mom died when I was young, and they were both only children, so there's not really any extended family, either."

"Do you see him often?" Laura asked, and the way she was circling her finger around the rim of her coffee cup made Stiles think of a predator toying with a mouse.

"Not as much as I'd like," Stiles said. "It's dangerous to leave him unsupervised, he starts getting ideas. You know, 'I'm an adult, Stiles, I can eat what I want, and I'm ordering curly fries,' that sort of thing. I go home when I've got breaks from school, and when I can during the term."

Laura hummed into her cup, taking a delicate sip. Derek's fingers tightened around Stiles' hand, almost painfully, like he knew that considering sound and didn't like it a bit. "It must be lonely for the both of you," she said, like she was just making conversation. "Derek and I grew up with family coming out our ears. We've got six other siblings, and our parents of course, and aunts and uncles and cousins always hanging around. We've got a big house, people tend to just... congregate. You'd probably find it a little overwhelming."

"Laura," Derek said, and his tone was warning, although Stiles still didn't know what she was driving at. Did she think he wouldn't fit in with Derek's family? Was she trying to warn him off, or—?

"I mean, not that you'll have to worry about meeting them," Laura continued, off-hand and casual.

She didn't get anything else out because Derek stood up, the scrape of his metal chair against the concrete patio loud and grating. He was still holding on to Stiles' hand, so Stiles was standing too before he could even think about it.

"Nice to see you, Laura, hope you'll be leaving town soon," Derek said, stepping around the obstacle of their abandoned chairs, starting to tow Stiles toward the street.

Laura didn't seem very shocked or put off by the whole thing; she abandoned her coffee and joined them within moments, as if Derek had invited her along for a stroll. She fell in at Stiles' other shoulder, like she was considering using him as a human shield.

"Come on, Derek, this is stupid," she said, ignoring the flash of Derek's teeth — they were more cute than intimidating without the fangs, anyway — and throwing her arm around Stiles' shoulders. "It's not like they don't want to see you, _everybody_ wants to see you, and now you've got somebody to introduce them to—"

_Oh,_ Stiles thought, and felt like an _idiot._ She wasn't trying to warn Stiles off, she was trying to use him like a bargaining chip to get Derek to go home. It seemed low and dirty and like exactly the kind of thing she'd do, and Stiles had only known her for all of ten minutes.

"We're not talking about this now," Derek said, with a sideways glance at Stiles like _not in front of the children._ "We aren't supposed to be _talking_ now at all. You're crashing our date. It's not charming."

Laura made a face and let go of Stiles' shoulders like she was worried somebody might assume they were working on a three-way. "It's not my fault you're a creature of habit with your favorite coffee shop. And how are you on a _date?_ It's like ten o'clock in the morning."

Stiles said, "We're non-traditional daters. Later I'm going to read him some dirty ancient poetry and I'm not sure but I think he might want to scent-mark me or something."

"You're an idiot," Derek told him.

"That's not a no."

"Oh my god," Laura said. "Okay, I'll leave you alone. Just... think about it, Derek, okay? They want to see you."

"They don't," Derek said, and the muscles in his jaw tightened, the tendons in his neck standing out, and whether he was angry or holding back frustrated tears, Stiles couldn't quite tell. The open display of emotions other than lust between them was kind of a new thing; he was still learning to read the changing landscape of Derek's face.

"They _do._ You're still pack, you're _always_ pack. I can explain it to them, if you want," Laura offered. "You don't even have to be there. You won't have to discuss it with them _ever._ They'll understand, they—"

"I don't want to talk about this right now, okay?" Derek said, and stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk, pulling Stiles to a stop with him. They wound up frozen like that, Derek still hanging on to Stiles' hand, Stiles stopped a step ahead, Laura a few more steps beyond that, turned to face them, her expression an obstinate mirror of Derek's own. Stiles took a quiet, deliberate step back until he was shoulder to shoulder with Derek again, forearms brushing warmly together, at Derek's side where he was supposed to be.

Laura sighed, looking away down the street, toward their parents' house or her parked car or her own life or god knew what, just _away._ When she turned back, she directed her gaze at the pavement, like she was worried the weight of it might make Derek run. She said, "Okay. I just— I'm always there for you, but you're not the only one living with your secrets, you know. And the way you keep to yourself, it's hard on everybody."

"I know," Derek said, and it seemed like it was all he was going to say.

"It's Peter's birthday next week. You should come. He misses you."

"Bye, Laura," Derek said, and he didn't offer her a parting hug or anything, just turned away and headed down the street, between the painted lines of the crosswalk, and into the park like he wasn't going to be able to breathe until he had some open space and trees around him.

Stiles just kept pace silently at his shoulder, until they'd walked a full circle around the border of the park, at least a good mile, and the tension started to bleed out of Derek's shoulders.

"Sorry," Derek finally said, and eased his grip on Stiles' hand, too. He didn't let go, but his thumb rubbed an apology over Stiles' knuckles.

"I get it," Stiles said. "I've been told before that older siblings are incredibly pushy and also bossy, and now I've seen it first hand."

Derek huffed a laugh, raised his other hand to swipe nervously over the back of his neck. "She used to chase me down every full moon," he admitted. "Like a greyhound after a rabbit."

"Well, you do have the teeth for the part," Stiles said, and slipped away, laughing, when Derek took a half-hearted swipe at him. "The cutest teeth in _all the land._ She was probably just jealous."

"Doubtful," Derek said, and then he nudged Stiles to the right, toward the park's interior. "Let's go this way. I want to show you something."

Stiles was content to be guided, Derek's hand at the small of his back warm and steady, though he didn't know the park or even the neighborhood. They'd parked in front of the intimidating stone facade of Derek's building before walking the two blocks to the coffee shop, and Stiles was savoring the low simmer of anticipation, knowing he'd get to see Derek's apartment later, learn how Derek looked in his own space, discover the texture of the sheets and how the light looked in there in the afternoon, the evening, the morning.

After a minute he said, "I know you don't want to talk about it, but I just want to make sure you know they're not going to scare me away." He slanted a sideways look at Derek, and Derek was looking back, face open and surprised. "Even if they're all nosy little shits like Laura. I want to meet them if you want me to meet them. That's all."

Derek blinked, and when he finally looked away there was a tiny smile curling the corner of his mouth. "Noted," he said, and then he pulled Stiles off the paved path and into the grass, still wet with rain from the night before. Their destination wasn't far, at least, because there was nowhere to go: just a stretch of grass verge, a few lamp posts, and then the flat gray flank of a stone retaining wall, holding back the hill behind it.

They stopped a few feet away, Derek peering at the stone like it was some kind of great work of art, Stiles flicking a look between the wall and Derek, waiting to be told exactly what he was missing. It was just a wall, though, maybe ten, eleven feet tall, put together with concrete and uneven stone, but sturdy, probably a relic of the old Civilian Conservation Corps, a public works project left over from the New Deal. Construction just like it dotted the landscape all over the state.

"Nice wall," Stiles said, for lack of anything better to say.

"It's not bad," Derek said. "We should've drunk a cellar's worth of alcohol first, I guess, for the sake of tradition. But I figured you wouldn't mind a little historical inaccuracy."

"I have literally no idea what you're talking about right now," Stiles said, but then he got distracted because Derek was pressing him against the wall in question, his arms bracketing Stiles' head, his lips pulling a long, deep, filthy kiss from Stiles' mouth. Then he drew back and looked up like he was eyeballing the distance, crouched low, and _jumped,_ straight up from a standstill, right over Stiles' head and up to the top of the wall, where he landed in a crouch, turned neatly on the balls of his feet, and peered back down at Stiles.

"What in the hell are you— oh my god. It's a _leaping wall."_

"Technically, it's just a wall," Derek said, but he was smiling.

"Fuck you, it's a beautiful reenactment of the Livonian wolves and the leaping wall, I can't believe you _remembered_ that that story's my favorite, you complete fucking _sap._ "

"You complaining?" Derek asked, with the sassy eyebrow raise Stiles had come to know and love. "I thought you'd like it."

"It's possibly the most adorable thing that's ever happened in my life," Stiles conceded. "You are getting _so_ laid tonight, you don't even know."

Derek snorted, and then there was a rush of displaced air as he jumped down again, light and easy, like the irrepressible show-off that he was. He landed close, close enough to reach out and grab, which was helpful because Stiles definitely needed to get his hands all over that; he was the one to push Derek back against the wall, this time.

"I don't know," Derek said, before Stiles could kiss him. "I might turn in early. Read a book or something. Plus I've got laundry to do."

"Oh, well," Stiles said, his mouth just a breath away from Derek's lips. "I guess if you'd rather do that than let me get my mouth all over you..."

"We could go back to my place right now," Derek suggested, and it was a great suggestion, the _best_ idea, so Stiles only made him jump up to the top of the wall two — okay, three — more times, before he took Derek's hand again and demanded that Derek take him to bed.


	13. Chapter 13

Derek's apartment was seriously ridiculous.

It wasn't even an apartment, really, it was more of a loft, with soaring ceilings, bare steel girders, brick walls, and an open floor plan that put everything, including the bed, all into the same space. It was beautiful, with the late morning sun flooding in through the massive floor to ceiling windows, blue-tinged from the overcast day outside, slanting across the bed. The place was bare, too, like a spread from a magazine with sleek steel appliances and artfully industrial light fixtures, the sheets on the bed neatly made, no dishes in the sink, no dirty clothes slung over the backs of chairs, the doors of the wardrobe against the wall neatly shut. The only sign of any personal items at all was contained to a set of built-in shelves, which were crowded with books, but even those were filed in neat ranks, instead of piled on top of each other in haphazard rows and stacks, like Stiles' always were.

Derek pulled the massive rolling door shut behind them and then stuffed his hands into his pockets, looking hesitant, like he was waiting for some sign of Stiles' approval.

"We're going to have to break up," Stiles told him, mournfully. "Derek, you never told me you were a _neat freak."_

Derek rolled his eyes, but his shoulders also loosened up and he shrugged out of his jacket, taking the two steps down into his kitchen to sling it over the back of a tall bar stool.

Stiles took the cue and followed him, not just down into the loft proper but also out of his clothes. He tugged his jacket off, toed his shoes into a messy pile, shucked off his hoodie, and he left them strewn across the floor because the place looked a little better, more like a home, when it was a little messy.

It looked a little better with a bit of Stiles draped over everything that was Derek's.

"On the other hand, I have to applaud the placement of the bed. It's a bold design choice. Very inviting. Like, 'Hey, since you're here, why don't we get naked and do the sex?'"

Derek sighed in a way that implied he should win some kind of award for putting up with Stiles' bullshit. But he was also moving closer, and there were little crinkles at the corners of his eyes, a lazy grin pulling at his mouth, and when he swayed into Stiles' space it was to plant an achingly soft, gentle kiss on Stiles' lips. His fingers settled carefully on Stiles' hips, and they stayed like that for what seemed like forever, trading slow brushes of their tongues, tasting the lines of each other's lips, lingering in a way they never had with each other before.

Of course, they'd never precisely done any of this before, in the stillness of the morning with no one else around to see them.

"Stiles," Derek said, when he finally moved to mouth at the tendons in Stiles' neck, tilted his face up to nibble delicately at Stiles' ear. His fingers snagged the bottom hem of Stiles' shirt and pulled it up and off when Stiles obligingly raised his arms. "Since you're here..."

Stiles laughed, hooked his fingers in Derek's belt loops, and pulled them both toward the bed.

There was something really satisfying about the way Derek allowed himself to be handled, the soft give of his body in response to Stiles' cues, the way he sank down to sit on the end of the bed at just the lightest pressure of Stiles' hands against his shoulders. He didn't need any prompting, either, to close his hands on the fly of Stiles' jeans, slip the button free and ease down the zipper, tug down on denim and briefs.

Stiles was already half-hard, and just the sight of Derek's mouth so close to him, the feel of Derek's hands twisted into the waistband of his jeans, was enough to make him twitch, wobbling helplessly forward, fighting the urge to just open that mouth up with his thumbs, press his dick in until he hit the back of Derek's throat. Derek could take it, _would_ take it, Stiles knew that without a doubt, but it was _better,_ just to watch and drag in desperate breaths and try to control himself while Derek tugged Stiles' jeans down low enough that Stiles could just step out of them. It was better to see the way Derek stared at him, hungry, _wanting,_ tongue flickering out to wet those lips, breath washing over the head of Stiles' cock like a touch, like a promise.

Derek kissed him, first, at the sharp ridge of his hip, and then moved his mouth closer, licking and nipping, sucking little marks into the pale of Stiles' skin, against the flat plane of his abdomen. Derek's teeth scraped along the trail of hair leading down from Stiles' navel, and then lower, at the base of his cock, and Stiles had to hiss in a breath at the pleasure-pain of it, before Derek finally closed his mouth around the head, as if in apology.

It was good, it was _so good,_ the tight heat of Derek's mouth, the wet suction, the stroke of his tongue, the pressure of it just under the head where Derek lingered like he already knew every inch of Stiles' body, knew how to take Stiles apart. He didn't, not yet, but he certainly had a natural talent anyway. There was fire beneath Stiles' skin everywhere that Derek touched, and it was amazing just because it was Derek, who he wanted, who wanted him, who wanted to _keep_ him, maybe forever.

Stiles wanted to sob, clutch at Derek's head, fuck into his mouth, hold him down and never let him leave his own bed, but instead he said, "That's it, that's so good, God you're so amazing," and, "Fuck yes, right there, press your tongue against the head, _fuck,_ now take me deeper."

Derek did, his body relaxing into it, sliding his mouth down Stiles' length even as his eyes blinked slow, like he was drunk on it. Stiles gave in to the temptation to stroke his fingers through Derek's hair, and the line of Derek's back eased a little further, like it was all he wanted, for Stiles to just _take_ everything he was offering.

God. Stiles wasn't going to survive this.

He also wasn't going to last, not the way they were going, so he curled his hands into Derek's hair and tugged him back. Derek let him do it, though he kept the suction up until Stiles' cock finally pulled free with an obscenely wet pop, Derek's lips slick and mouth open, like he was ready to go again, just waiting for Stiles to give him permission.

Stiles kissed his mouth instead, licked the taste of himself from Derek's lips, and then pulled away far enough to tug Derek's shirt over his head. Derek kicked his boots off himself, fumbled off his socks while Stiles stroked the stooped line of his back, eeled out of his jeans without getting up, his naked body curved like a question mark.

Stiles answered it by pushing Derek back, watching the lines of him as they unfurled against the blankets. Derek's hands skimmed over Stiles' skin, trying to touch everything at once, and he answered Stiles' kiss with his own, his knees parting to fit Stiles' body between his thighs, as if there had always been room for Stiles there in Derek's space, as if there always would be.

"What do you want?" Stiles asked, against Derek's cheek, his hand curling into a tight fist around the hot line of Derek's cock. "Tell me."

"What do you think?" Derek said, which wasn't an answer, but he was right, of course. Stiles knew exactly what he wanted, what they both wanted, could read it in the way Derek's hips pressed up into his hand, in the way Derek threw his head back and bared his throat, in the way Derek's fingers clutched bruises into Stiles' hip.

"Where's your stuff?"

Derek twisted beneath him, stretching for the nightstand drawer and coming up with a couple of condoms and a bottle half full of lube. He dropped them both on the bed while Stiles, distracted by the tattoo between his shoulder blades, pinned him down against the bed, on his stomach, and traced the inked lines with his mouth.

"You could get started any day now," Derek said, as Stiles' thumbs traced the ridges of muscle on either side of his spine.

"You're not the boss of me," Stiles told him.

He picked up the lube, though, and popped the top of the bottle open, spilling way too much of it across his fingers and against the crack of Derek's perfect, beautiful ass, clumsy in a way he hadn't been since his first girlfriend in college. He didn't even _care,_ though, because Derek wasn't laughing, he was moaning and shifting against the bed, trying to find some friction for his cock, whimpering when Stiles circled his fingertips around Derek's hole, spreading the slick, sticky lube, and then pushed inside, starting out with two fingers and a confident twist of his wrist.

The sound Derek let out was pained, but in the good way; his hips shifted restlessly, pressed back against Stiles' fingers, looking for more and deeper.

"I don't need—" he started, then cut off with a groan when Stiles curled his fingers up. "Just _fuck_ me, Jesus, I can't—"

Stiles hushed him, a low, soothing sound, and pressed kisses against his shoulders and back even as Stiles' fingers worked relentlessly inside Derek's body, curling against his prostate again and again, achingly slow and steady. With his free hand, Stiles pressed firm against the small of Derek's back, pinning him to the mattress, making him stay, making him _take it,_ like he knew Derek couldn't be trusted to give in to it otherwise. It was only for show, of course; Derek was a werewolf, with all the strength that came with it, but the restraint seemed to drive him just a little crazy, his breath sobbing out of him and his hips rutting minutely against the mattress as Stiles worked at him mercilessly.

Derek gasped something that sounded like Stiles' name, in a tone that implied a curse, but Stiles was already pulling free — Derek actually _whined,_ Jesus — fumbling for a condom, trying to tear the wrapper open with too-slick hands. It wasn't working, it _really_ wasn't working, and he knew better than to use his teeth but—

"Are you _kidding_ me?" Derek said, in the strained tone of voice of a man who had been pushed past his breaking point.

He rolled onto his back, sitting up effortlessly with a ripple of his abs, and _Derek_ had to be the one who was kidding, with those muscles, it wasn't right or fair or humane. He plucked the condom out of Stiles' hands, wiped it against the bedspread, and tore the foil open neatly, letting the latex round drop into his hand. When he rolled it down over Stiles' dick he did it _slow,_ what felt like one millimeter at a time, the rest of his fingers stroking lazily at Stiles' erection, and it was payback, obviously, but the good kind, the _best_ kind. Stiles had to clamp his own hand around the base of his dick and desperately hold on just to keep from coming, but it was _worth it._

"God, you're such an asshole," he told Derek, breathless, almost in awe. They were _both_ assholes. And they both _liked_ assholes, both literally and figuratively. Clearly theirs was a union destined by fate.

Derek rolled his eyes and ignored the obvious opening for asshole-related jokes; he just turned himself over again, onto his hands and knees, and looked back at Stiles like he was issuing some kind of challenge, one eyebrow raised.

Oh, it was _on._ Stiles was going to fuck him through the mattress. Gently. Tenderly. Lovingly. With feelings. Derek had no idea what he was in for.

But he wasn't in for anything until Stiles got in, so to speak, so Stiles shuffled forward on his knees, pressed in close against Derek's ass, his cock slipping along the lube-slicked crack, and if they both made ridiculous noises, well, they didn't have to tell anyone. There was nobody watching this time, no need to be too aware of how they looked; there was only skin, sweat, cool morning light across their bodies and everything between them, falling into place.

Stiles pressed a kiss against Derek's spine, mouthed at the small of his back, stroked long fingers against his hips. He had to go slow, when he finally put a hand around his cock and pressed _in,_ but that wasn't teasing, that was just necessity; he was trying desperately to hold back from coming at just the _thought_ of it, much less the reality.

Nothing about Derek seemed real, least of all the tight clutch of his body or the little breathy moans he let out or the way he tried to push himself back onto Stiles' cock. Stiles couldn't even understand it, couldn't believe any of this was happening, because nothing so good, so right, so _perfect_ had ever happened to him. And yet Derek was real, solid and hot and alive beneath him, demanding _more_ and _harder_ and _fuck me, Stiles._ It was impossibly hot, even if Stiles completely ignored the demands and fucked in slow, deep, diligent, until he could feel sweat gathering at the small of his back and his legs starting to quiver and Derek made a sound that was actually a sob.

It felt like it was over too quickly and like it went on forever, at the same time. Stiles couldn't hold out as long as he'd have liked with the slow, borderline cheesy lovemaking, and probably his stamina made him an embarrassment to his part-time pornographic profession. But it wasn't all him; Derek contributed too, by growling and cursing and aggressively shoving himself backward until Stiles finally took the hint and just let it go, shifting to a new angle and snapping his hips forward, hard and fast, until Derek's breaths were being punched out of him with each thrust. Then he draped himself over Derek's back — Derek was strong, he could take it — and curled a fist around Derek's cock, stripping it hard and fast in counterpoint to his own thrusts, dragging Derek's orgasm out of him.

The sound Derek made when he came was beautiful, low and animal, and Stiles wanted to hear it again, every day — maybe several times a day, with some cardio training — for the rest of his life. He was sure he didn't sound nearly as sexy, when Derek's body clenched around him and he followed Derek over the edge, collapsing over Derek's back and whispering I-love-yous against the base of his neck.

The way Derek held his weight up, effortlessly, was about a million times hotter than Stiles would have expected it to be. The way Derek clutched his hand afterward, when they collapsed into a sweaty tangle on the bed, was even better. Stiles giggled like an idiot over the wet spot on the duvet and the mussed sheets, but Derek just smiled, soft-eyed and content, and didn't seem to mind the idea of Stiles making a mess of his bed, his sheets, his orderly life.


	14. Epilogue

Derek, who was an absolute irredeemable _coward,_ was hiding in the pantry just off the kitchen.

Stiles wouldn't have even known where to begin looking in the huge, unfamiliar expanse of the Hale pack house, which was why he turned to Eloise when he realized Derek had disappeared. Eloise was twelve, a werewolf, probably an Alpha in the making, and definitely more than a little mercenary. She was also maybe not Stiles' best choice — he should've started with one of the younger, more easily impressed children, there were certainly enough of them running around that he had plenty of options — because when Stiles held out a five dollar bill and said, "Can you sniff out your uncle Derek for me?" the kid gave him an unimpressed look and made a counteroffer of ten dollars.

He hadn't had enough small bills on him, and he'd ended up paying her twenty. But when he was shutting the pantry door behind him — leaving the noise of the party and the pressure of Derek's family firmly on the other side, closing himself in a small enough space that he swore he could detect the warmth of Derek's skin — it was worth every penny.

"There's something _really_ wrong with your uncle Peter," Stiles said. He leaned back against the door, partly to act as a human barricade in case any of Derek's relatives decided to butt their noses in, and partly to hold himself up, because he was a little exhausted. Derek's family was _huge,_ and a little on the overwhelming side.

"Tell me about it," Derek said, in a tone that invited Stiles to actually _never speak of it,_ and took a long swig from the bottle of werewolf booze in his hand. He was sitting on what might've been a wine crate, his shirt collar gaping open like he'd had to unbutton it to keep from suffocating. Half cast in shadows by the single bare bulb overhead, he looked like a magazine spread, but better, because he was real, touchable, just a few steps away.

Stiles swayed forward, away from the door, toward Derek, like he didn't have complete control of his own limbs. He usually didn't, where Derek was concerned. Sometimes it led to really great spontaneous sex and sometimes it led to Derek taking a completely unintentional elbow in the face.

"I'd rather talk about how you ditched me like a bad prom date at a party full of _your_ family," Stiles said. "I'm being forced to reconsider my options, and I might have to leave you for your cousin Aggie."

Derek squinted, leaning against the wall behind him, spreading his knees and propping his bottle against his hip. He looked effortlessly sexy _all the time,_ it was ridiculous. "Aggie's seven," Derek pointed out.

"Well, sure, but apparently she'd provide for me. She said she's the best at catching squirrels."

"I can't compete with that. I'm not even the second best at catching squirrels. I hope you'll be very happy together."

Stiles snorted. There was a low step stool within easy reach, so he stooped to grab it, sliding it across the floor to make himself a seat. There wasn't much room; it was a tight squeeze when he settled in next to Derek, but Stiles didn't exactly mind, would always want to be as deep into Derek's space as he was allowed. They wound up pressed together, shoulder to hip, and Stiles reached over to take Derek's hand too, just for good measure.

"Are you freaking out?" Stiles asked, voice low, hoping that the massive assembly of wolves outside couldn't hear him.

Derek sighed. "Maybe a little."

Stiles made a sympathetic sound and tightened his fingers around Derek's hand. "You want to call Doctor Morrell?"

"No," Derek said, petulant.

"You want to leave?"

That question took longer to answer, like he was really considering it, and then finally, "No."

"You don't have to tell them today. You don't have to tell them _ever,_ Laura and I can take care of it for you, if you want. But you don't have to tell them today."

"I know," Derek said. "But I want to— I just want to. It's okay, with you here."

"Okay," Stiles agreed, easy. "It's going to be fine. I've got your back."

Stiles' thumb swept over the back of Derek's hand, slow and soothing, until something in Derek's posture eased, just a little, and he finally really slumped back against the wall, let Stiles take some of his weight, put his head on Stiles' shoulder and just breathed.

"Hey," Stiles said, after awhile. "You wanna make out in your mom's pantry?"

Derek laughed, poured it right out against Stiles' throat, open-mouthed and gasping, but it wasn't a _no._

If it took them awhile to rejoin the party, if Stiles' hair was mussed and his shirt was untucked, and if Derek looked a little less hunted than before, well, nobody mentioned it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy pornography Batman, it's done! I want to extend my thanks again to DevilDoll for beta'ing this for me, bit by bit, and helping me retain my sanity throughout the process. Also props to abbylee for always patiently listening to me whine, and thanks again to Siess for commissioning this work of I don't even know what.
> 
> And thanks to all of YOU, for hanging in there and continuing to read even when you must surely have despaired of this fic ever being finished. Blessings be upon your infinite patience.
> 
> I'm on tumblr [here](http://agentotter.tumblr.com) if you'd care to join me for a celebratory wolfsbane-infused beverage.
> 
> (I'm just kidding don't ever consume or touch wolfsbane products you will straight-up die werewolf or not just don't son.)


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